Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM vindicated the Army’s attention
to training and readiness. This extensive interview conducted by Army historians
provides one division commander’s view of how readiness helped achieve
victory in the war against Iraq. It also contains insights into how a division
commander dealt with the fast pace of the ground war. At the time of this
interview, MG J.H. Binford Peay was nearing completion of his tour as commander
of the 101st Airborne Division. Soon afterward, he was promoted to lieutenant
general and assigned to the Pentagon as the Department of the Army’s Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans. In March 1993, he earned his fourth
star and became the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff. In August 1994, he assumed
command of the United States Central Command.

Throughout the interview, General Peay expresses confidence in the ability
of his troops to overcome difficult challenges. He sees training and standards
as two of the keys to the U.S. Army’s success against Iraq, helping create
a force of ready professionals. General Peay discusses the 101st Airborne
Division’s deployment to Saudi Arabia; its plans for a defense against
an Iraqi attack; and finally the division’s role in the coalition offensive.

This transcript is offered as a most worthwhile addition to the growing
body of knowledge on the Persian Gulf war. We hope that it will generate
additional work by those interested in warfare in this century.

JOHN W. MOUNTCASTLE
Brigadier General, USA
Chief of Military History

Biography of

General J.H. Binford Peay III

United States Army

General J.H. Binford Peay III was born in 1940. Upon graduation from
the Virginia Military Institute in 1962, he was commissioned as a second
lieutenant and awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.
He later earned a Master of Arts from George Washington University. His
military education includes completion of the Field Artillery Officer Basic
and Advanced Courses, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College,
and the U.S. Army War College.

General Peay’s initial troop assignments were in Germany and Fort Carson,
Colorado. From December 1964 to September 1966, he served as Aide-de-Camp
to the Commanding General, 5th Infantry Division. He went on to serve in
other assignments including two tours in the Republic of Vietnam. In his
first tour from May 1967 to July 1968, he commanded both Headquarters Company,
I Field Force Vietnam, and a firing battery (Battery B, 4th Battalion,
42d Artillery) with the 4th Infantry Division in the central highlands.
During his second tour from August 1971 to June 1972, he served as the
assistant operations officer for the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division,
and as operations officer for the same division’s 1st Battalion, 21st Artillery.

After serving with the Army Military Personnel Center in Washington,
DC, as a Field Artillery branch assignments officer, Peay was sent to Hawaii
in 1975 to command the 2d Battalion, 11th Field Artillery, 25th Infantry
Division. Following completion of the Army War College, he returned to
Washington, DC, as Senior Aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and later as Chief of the Army Initiatives Group in the Office of the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Operation and Plans. He then moved to Fort Lewis, Washington,
to serve as the I Corps’ Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3/Director of Plans
and Training, and later became Commander, 9th Infantry Division Artillery.
In 1985, he returned to Washington, DC, as Executive to the Chief of Staff,
United States Army. He first became a Screaming Eagle in July 1987, when
he became the Assistant Division Commander (Operations), 101st Airborne
Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Beginning in July 1988,
he served a one year assignment as Deputy Commandant, Command and General
Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

v

On 3 August 1989, General Peay returned to Fort Campbell to assume command
of the 101st Airborne Division and led the division through Operations
DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM in the Persian Gulf. Promoted to the rank
of Lieutenant General, he was the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
and Plans, and Senior Army Member, United States Military Committee from
June 1991 until March 1993. He was promoted to General on 26 March 1993
and appointed as the Army’s twenty-fourth Vice Chief of Staff. He assumed
his last active duty position, as Commander in Chief, United States Central
Command, at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, on 5 August 1994.

General Peay has received awards and decorations including the Army
Distinguished Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the Silver Star,
the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster,
the Bronze Star Medal with three oak leaf clusters, and the Purple Heart.
He has also received the Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters,
several Air Medals, and the Army Commendation Medal. Additionally, he wears
the Parachutist Badge, Ranger Tab, the Air Assault Badge, the Secretary
of Defense Identification Badge, Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge,
and the Army General Staff Identification Badge.

Under Army
Regulation 870-5, Military History: Responsibilities, Policies, and Procedures,
military history detachments and historical offices send their interviews
to the U.S. Army Center of Military History’s Oral History Activity where
the tapes or transcripts can be used for the preparation of official histories.
This interview is one of over 800 oral histories in the Center’s DESERT
SHIELD/DESERT STORM Interview Tape (DSIT) collection and has the catalog
number DSIT-AE-101.

As the XVIII Airborne Corps historian in Southwest Asia, MAJ Robert
K. Wright, Jr., accompanied the 101st Airborne Division into Iraq and was
the lead interviewer when General Peay participated in this oral history
shortly after the division returned from Southwest Asia in 1991. After
the Center transcribed the interview, Dr. Wright (first in his civilian
job as corps’ historian and later after his transfer to the Center) completed
the initial editing of the transcript. Stephen E. Everett and Dr. Richard
A. Hunt of the Center’s Oral History Activity made further editorial refinements.
The editors tried to maintain the interviewee’s wording and intent, but
deleted false starts and added words and explanations when necessary for
clarity.

General Peay and his staff assistant, LTC Randy Kolton, reviewed the
edited transcript and clarified a number of points. Mr. Everett prepared
the historical essay which provides background information for the 101st
Airborne Division and air assault doctrine, as well as a brief summary
of the division’s activities during DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM. Dr. Jeffrey
J. Clarke, the Center’s Chief Historian, and Drs. Wright and Hunt offered
helpful suggestions to improve the narrative and make it more appealing
to a wider audience. CPT Gordon R. Quick, the Center’s military history
intern and a 101st Division veteran, also added his insight, as did the
Oral History Activity’s Dwight D. Oland. Steve Hardyman and John Birmingham
of the Center’s Production Division assisted with the maps and the final
publication format.

Questions and comments concerning this transcript should be sent to
the Oral History Activity, U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1099 14th
Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20005-3402.

viii

HISTORICAL ESSAY

The
101st Airborne Division and Air Assault Operations

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) has earned an honored place
in American military history. Stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the
division is known throughout the Army as "The Screaming Eagles" because
of the unit’s distinctive shoulder sleeve insignia. The division fought
at Normandy and Bastogne during World War II, and at Dak To and the A Shau
Valley in the Vietnam war. To that list of battlefields can now be added
FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) COBRA and VIPER, the Euphrates Valley, and
other places from Operation DESERT STORM.

Organized as an air assault division, the 101st Airborne Division is
normally equipped with over 200 helicopters, far more than other Army divisions.
These helicopters give the 101st Division exceptional aerial mobility,
serve as weapons platforms, and provide transport for soldiers and supplies.
Air assault, however, is more than moving troops and equipment by air;
it is a way of thinking about warfare. As set forth in Army Field Manual
90-4, Air Assault Operations, highly mobile combined arms teams undertake
these missions to strike an enemy where he is most vulnerable. Routinely
using the cover of darkness and able to cover extended distances, air assault
infantry can catch an opponent unprepared by flying over enemy lines and
terrain obstacles and landing on top of, or behind, enemy defensive positions.
The 101st demonstrated this capability during DESERT STORM when its helicopters
quickly transported troops and their equipment over distances far beyond
the logistical capabilities of many nations’ armies. Air assault commanders
can also "task organize," or tailor, their numerous organic aviation units
for rapid redeployment to a variety of tactical situations. As commander
of the 101st, MG J.H. Binford Peay III exploited this advantage, using
the inherently flexible organization of the air assault division.

The division’s successful air assaults in Southwest Asia drew on years
of combat experience and doctrinal refinements. In Vietnam, the 101st had
employed attached helicopters to locate the enemy and transport troops
into combat. Reorganized in 1968 as an "airmobile" division, the 101st
relied heavily on the mobility and flexibility provided by organic helicopter
units. After the Vietnam war, the term "air assault" replaced "airmobile,"
and soldiers in

[2]

the newly designated air assault division refined their skills in areas
such as rappelling from helicopters, unit aerial assaults, and sling-loading
of equipment. In the 1970s and 1980s, the air assault division earned a
place in the Army’s new operational doctrine, AirLand Battle, which was
used in the war against Iraq.

In its simplest terms, AirLand Battle was based on four tenets: initiative,
depth, agility, and synchronization.1 First, initiative encouraged
soldiers at all levels to seize and exploit opportunities to gain advantages
over opponents. Second, commanders were urged to use the entire depth of
the battlefield and strike at rear echelon targets that supported frontline
troops. Third, agility required commanders to react to enemy strengths
and quickly strike at the enemy where he was vulnerable. Fourth, synchronization
called for the commander to maximize available combined arms firepower
on critical targets to achieve the greatest effect. These complementary
tenets were the foundation for campaign planning in DESERT STORM.

The air assault division is well designed for AirLand Battle. It contains
nine infantry battalions organized into three brigades. Each infantry battalion
has an authorized strength of about forty officers and 640 enlisted personnel,
organized into a headquarters company, three rifle companies, and an anti-armor
company to provide extra firepower against enemy tanks. An aviation brigade
with eight battalions provides the division with organic reconnaissance,
attack, aeromedical, assault and logistical lift capabilities. Divisional
combat support and combat service support elements round out the organization,
and additional units can be attached to the division as required (see Chart
1).2

Air assault operations enable the division commander to seize and maintain
the operational and tactical initiative. With local air superiority, the
air assault division commander can move his units rapidly, bypassing enemy
strongpoints, concentrating forces, and exploiting opportunities. During
operations in Southwest Asia, the 101st Airborne Division skillfully employed
air assault tactics and validated the basic tenets of the AirLand Battle
doctrine.

Operations
DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM

On 2 August 1990 with little warning, Iraq, under the dictatorship of
Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait and totally occupied the country in less
than forty-eight hours, instigating a serious international crisis. Hussein
commanded the world’s fourth largest field army, which included large numbers
of modern Soviet-designed tanks and veterans seasoned by a long and bloody
war with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait’s neighbor to the south,

[4]

fearing that its oil fields would be the Iraqi Army’s next objective,
agreed on 6 August to accept U.S. military assistance.

Operation DESERT SHIELD began with the U.S. order to deploy air, ground,
and sea forces to the region, among them the 101st Airborne Division, to
help defend the Saudis against an anticipated Iraqi attack. On 8 August,
thirty-six hours after receiving their alert notice, lead elements of the
XVIII Airborne Corps’ 82d Airborne Division were enroute from Fort Bragg,
North Carolina to Saudi Arabia. Seven days later, one 82d Airborne brigade
drew a symbolic "line in the sand," warning Hussein not to cross the border.
The 82d Airborne Division’s paratroopers were soon joined by growing numbers
of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who came under GEN H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM),
the joint command responsible for U.S. operations in Southwest Asia. Other
nations joined a coalition against Iraq. Eventually thirty-seven countries,
among them Great Britain, France, Italy, Egypt, Syria, and other Arab nations
in the region, provided troops or materiel.

CENTCOM’s initial objective was to bring enough ground, air, and sea
power into Saudi Arabia to demonstrate America’s commitment to defend its
ally and deter an Iraqi attack. In the early days of DESERT SHIELD, planners
realized that available forces could not defend all of Saudi Arabia, but
hoped that American planes could destroy enough Iraqi tanks to slow an
invasion and allow American and Saudi ground forces to defend the major
gulf ports until reinforcements arrived. The buildup of military forces
necessitated the creation of a logistical base, forcing CENTCOM to balance
the deployment of combat forces with the support troops and their supplies
and equipment. The availability of air and sea transport, and the enormous
distance between the United States and Saudi Arabia, also complicated the
buildup and added to CENTCOM’s concerns. Although the 101st Airborne Division
was designed to be rapidly deployable, logistics requirements and the demand
for heavy "armored" forces governed the deployment of the division and
other units to the desert.

Another XVIII Airborne Corps unit, the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)
actually began its deployment to the Gulf before the 101st Airborne Division.
The 24th Division was directed on 6 August to start moving its M1 Abrams
tanks, M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and other equipment from Fort Stewart,
Georgia to the port of Savannah, where they would be loaded onto ships
for the long voyage to Saudi Arabia. By the first half of September personnel
and equipment for the 24th Division’s two brigades had arrived in theater.3
Meanwhile, on 10 August, the Army issued deployment orders for the 101st.
At that time, many of the division’s units were far from their home station
at Fort Campbell. Some units were scattered across the country supporting
Reserve Component summer training or conducting training exercises at West
Point, New York; others were abroad in Honduras and Panama, or preparing
to deploy to the Sinai as part of the Multinational Force and Observer
Organization. All units had to return to Kentucky as quickly as possible
to prepare for their mission in Saudi Arabia.

[5]

The division’s advance party arrived in Saudi Arabia on 15 August and
began laying the groundwork for the rest of the 101st. CENTCOM placed a
high priority on receiving anti-armor equipment, and the 101st’s attack
helicopters, the division’s best anti-tank weapons, were sent first. The
first planes carrying personnel and equipment from the 101st’s Aviation
Brigade and the 2d Brigade’s "ready" battalion left Fort Campbell on 17
August. Over the next thirteen days, the 101st Division sent by air (in
fifty-six Air Force C-141s and forty-nine C-5Bs) 117 helicopters, 487 vehicles,
123 equipment pallets, and 2,742 troops into the theater. In addition to
its own units, the division also had to coordinate the rapid air deployment
of the 2d Battalion, 229th Aviation (equipped with AH-64 Apache attack
helicopters) from Fort Rucker, Alabama and the Target Acquisition Platoon
of Troop A, 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (equipped with OH-58D Kiowa reconnaissance
helicopters) from Fort Lewis, Washington. These two units would remain
attached to the 101st throughout the operation, contributing to its overall
combat power. The rest of the 2d Brigade, along with other elements, arrived
by 10 September.

The remainder of the division’s equipment moved by convoy and rail to
Jacksonville, Florida and was loaded aboard ships for the month-long voyage
to Saudi Arabia. The first of the ten ships that carried the division’s
equipment sailed on 19 August and the last left port on 10 September. The
sailing time gave soldiers from the 3d and 1st Brigades a few extra days
of preparation at Fort Campbell before deploying to the theater in commercial
aircraft. Throughout September, division elements flew to the Arabian Gulf
(Persian Gulf) where they married up with their equipment. All elements
of the 101st were in Saudi Arabia by 6 October.

Division engineers constructed the division’s initial staging facility
and base camp, Camp EAGLE II, near King Fahd International Airport (KFIA),
just inland from the Arabian Gulf and northwest of Ad Damman. During the
following weeks, the division carried out its defensive mission as a covering
force in Area of Operations (AO) NORMANDY, a large 1,800 square mile (4,600
square kilometer) region lying about 130 miles northwest of the division
base camp and 85 miles south of Kuwait. Within NORMANDY, the division had
two forward operating bases (FOBs), BASTOGNE in the area’s eastern section
near An Nu’ayriyah and OASIS located at an abandoned unnamed village in
the western section. In the harsh desert environment, the 101st’s helicopters
were instrumental in moving forces and supplies, and providing fires over
this vast area.

The XVIII Airborne Corps planned to use the 101st Division to slow the
considerable armor formations that would support any Iraqi thrust into
Saudi Arabia. Only a limited number of roads would be available to invading
Iraqi tanks, and the 101st’s ground and air elements could cover these
routes. Each of the division’s organic and attached attack helicopter battalions
had eighteen AH-64 Apaches or twenty-one AH-1 Cobras providing the 101st
with a powerful punch and exceptional anti-tank capabilities. Flying low
to the ground and using available desert terrain for cover, helicopters
could strike hostile armor or their vulnerable logistical support deep
behind forward lines. The Apache’s advanced sensors allowed the helicopters
to fly at night and in inclement weather, thus creating a serious threat
to the Iraqis. The division had at its disposal a variety of anti-tank
systems, but perhaps the most effective were the sixteen Hellfire missiles
carried by each Apache attack helicopter. In addition, every Cobra helicopter
carried eight Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) missiles.
The lethality of these weapons sys-

Adding to the division’s arsenal were another 180 TOW launchers mounted
on High Mobility, Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles (known as HMMWVs, HUMVEEs,
or HUMMERs). There were twenty TOW equipped HMMWVs located in each of the
101st Division’s nine anti-armor companies and, unlike Iraqi tanks, they
were not bound to the road by the soft sand. HMMWVs could rapidly outmaneuver
enemy tanks over desert terrain, and their TOW missiles could also outdistance
the main guns of the Iraqi armor by up to 2,000 yards. In preparing to
defend Saudi Arabia, the 101st formed mobile anti-armor teams with these
assets and placed them forward to meet an Iraqi attack. Using the firepower
of these weapons systems, complemented by aerial mobility and fire from
the division artillery, the 101st would attempt to slow an enemy onslaught
and then hand off the covering force battle to the 24th Infantry Division
(Mechanized). Located behind the 101st, the 24th would fight the main battle
against any invaders.

The 101st Division’s anti-tank capabilities expanded with the attachment
of the 12th Aviation Brigade, which deployed from Europe to Saudi Arabia
in late September and early October. The brigade consisted of two attack
helicopter battalions, equipped with Apaches, and supporting lift units.
Another unit, the 3d Armored Cavalry deployed from Fort Bliss, Texas in
the second half of September. During Operation DESERT SHIELD the regiment
came under the operational control of the 101st Airborne Division and played
a key role in the division’s covering force plans. Also attached to the
101st during DESERT SHIELD, the 75th and 212th Field Artillery Brigades
provided indirect fire support with their Multiple Launch Rocket Systems,
and 155mm and 8-inch self-propelled howitzers. The 101st and its attached
units constantly rehearsed their defensive plans and were prepared for
an Iraqi attack.

With the October arrival of the 1st Cavalry Division (organized as an
armored division), coalition leaders felt confident that they had more
than sufficient strength to defend the important coastal region of Saudi
Arabia. By 5 November, just three months after the initial deployment,
XVIII Airborne Corps’ strength in Saudi Arabia included over 760 tanks,
almost 1500 armored fighting vehicles, more than 500 artillery pieces,
nearly 230 attack helicopters, and 107,300 soldiers. The coalition’s next
step was to begin preparing its forces for a possible offensive to restore
Kuwait’s independence if Iraq refused to remove its forces. In November,
to provide the extra military forces needed to recapture Kuwait, President
George Bush announced the deployment of additional American divisions from
Europe and the United States to Saudi Arabia. These deployments clearly
signaled the intention of the United States and its coalition partners
to employ force to retake Kuwait, but Saddam Hussein refused to withdraw
his occupying army.

The new armor and mechanized divisions provided the decisive ground
combat power for coalition forces to go on the offensive and liberate Kuwait.
The 1st and 3d Armored Divisions, the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized),
and the 2d Armored Cavalry arrived in Saudi Arabia over the next few months
and came under the VII Corps. These divisions, together with the United
Kingdom’s 1st Armoured Division, formed the spearhead that would cross
into Iraq and confront the tanks of Hussein’s "elite" Republican Guard
divisions, which were waiting in reserve far behind the Iraqi border defenses.
Non-Republican Guard Iraqi divisions were dug in along the

[8]

Saudi border. These inferior divisions were concentrated from about
forty miles west of the Wadi Al-Batin, one of the few natural terrain features
along the Iraq-Kuwait border, along the entire distance of the Saudi border
extending to the gulf. Behind these frontline troops Iraq had positioned
a number of other divisions, including higher caliber armored and mechanized
units to act as a mobile reserve, and the Republican Guard divisions, to
act as a counterattack force. Numerous artillery groupments supplemented
all these units.

GEN Schwarzkopf’s campaign to defeat Iraq and liberate Kuwait, Operation
DESERT STORM, was scheduled to begin sometime after January 15, 1991, the
United Nations’ deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
DESERT STORM would open with several weeks of an aggressive bombing campaign
aimed at weakening Iraq’s infrastructure, command and control centers,
and frontline positions. In the next phase, the ground offensive, Schwarzkopf
planned to have Marine and Arab units tie down Iraqi forces along the Kuwaiti-Saudi
border, while the tank-heavy VII Corps divisions would breach Iraqi defenses
to the west of Wadi Al-Batin and engage the Iraqi divisions from the flank
and rear. VII Corps’ goal was to defeat the Republican Guards and prevent
them from counterattacking the Marine and Arab forces that would advance
towards Kuwait City.

[9]

The mission of the 101st Division and other XVIII Airborne Corps units
was to cover the left flank of the VII Corps and coalition forces, and
strike deep inside Iraq to prevent retreating Iraqi troops from escaping
across the Euphrates River. The 101st would also be in position to threaten
the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Two brigades of the 1st Cavalry Division,
which had been removed from XVIII Airborne Corps to act as an army reserve
in December 1990, would defend against a possible Iraqi counterattack at
the Wadi Al-Batin and create the impression that the main coalition attack
would come along the wadi.4 The 6th French Light Armored Division
replaced the 1st Cavalry Division within XVIII Airborne Corps.

The plan also required both VII and XVIII Corps to reposition their
forces to the west prior to the ground offensive. The execution of this
movement was a significant accomplishment in itself. Most of the move took
place after the war started and it escaped notice by Iraqi intel-

[10]

ligence thanks to allied deception operations and air supremacy. First,
VII Corps maneuvered into line west of both Wadi Al-Batin and XVIII Airborne
Corps, which was still protecting the gulf ports. Then, XVIII Airborne
Corps, including the 101st, moved to the west leapfrogging VII Corps and
occupying positions near the Iraqi border. Thus XVIII Airborne Corps anchored
the far west of the coalition line, while U.S. Marine and Arab Coalition
forces guarded the eastern portion. The 101st took eleven days to relocate
northwest to a site near the Iraqi border, Tactical Assembly Area (TAA)
CAMPBELL, about forty miles southeast of the Saudi town of Rafha. To reach
CAMPBELL, the division moved over 600 miles by road and 300 by helicopter
or Air Force C-130 transport planes.

XVIII Airborne Corps faced fewer and less concentrated Iraqi forces
than did VII Corps, but its logistical challenge was far greater. The XVIII’s
assembly areas were far from the coalition’s support bases along the coast
and its troops had to cross enormous expanses of Iraq’s desert terrain
to reach their objectives. Maintaining access to critical supplies such
as fuel (consumption rates for the 101st’s helicopters paralleled fuel
requirements for an armored division) was key to a successful operation.
Logistical support for the corps entailed the establishment of forward
logistics bases and running ground supply convoys along a series of lengthy
main supply

[11]

routes (MSRs). The Trans-Arabia Pipeline (TAPLINE) Road, also known
as MSR DODGE, was the main route that connected XVIII Airborne Corps to
other coalition forces and Saudi Arabia’s coast. The corps’ main logistical
base, CHARLIE, was located astride the TAPLINE Road about fifty miles southeast
of Rafha. Corps engineers improved the old dirt trading routes that led
about twenty miles north from the TAPLINE Road to the Iraqi border. From
west to east these roads were MSRs TEXAS, NEWMARKET, and GEORGIA, and they
would serve as the axes for the corps’ ground attack.

As the start of the ground war drew near, XVIII Airborne Corps completed
preparations for its attack. On the corps’ far left, the 6th French Light
Armored Division, supported by the 82d Airborne Division, would seize key
blocking positions around As Salman, an Iraqi town about a hundred miles
north of Rafha along MSR TEXAS. In the middle of the corps, the 101st Division
would initiate a series of air assaults in order to occupy strategic positions
in the Euphrates Valley and cut road connections between Baghdad and Kuwait
City. Essential to this operation was the seizure and establishment of
a forward operating base, called FOB COBRA, about eighty miles inside Iraq
to serve as a staging area for additional assaults. Ground convoys carrying
supplies and supporting troops would follow up the initial air assaults
and advance north along MSR NEWMARKET to connect TAPLINE ROAD and COBRA.
Corps logisticians also planned to establish MSR VIRGINIA as an east-west
route connecting As Salman with points east. The 24th Infantry Division
and the 3d Armored Cavalry would use MSR GEORGIA on the corps’ right flank
and support the advances of VII Corps.

During the air war the 101st Division continued preparing for the ground
offensive, rehearsing air assaults and the establishment of forward operating
bases. Some division elements had already been in combat. Apache helicopters
from the 101st had helped open the air war early on 17 January 1991, flying
inside Iraq to destroy two early warning radar sites before they could
alert Baghdad of the impending air attacks. In the weeks that followed,
MG Peay kept the division ready for action. In the days preceding the main
ground attack on 24 February (G-Day), the division launched a series of
reconnaissance raids into Iraq. These forays captured enemy soldiers and
the experience also honed the soldiers’ combat edge for the air assaults
that were soon to follow.

On G-Day, the 101st Division’s 1st Brigade, reinforced by a battalion
from the 2d Brigade, air assaulted about ninety-five miles north from TAA
CAMPBELL into the patch of desert that would become FOB COBRA. Apaches,
artillery, and Air Force A-10s (ground support aircraft) forced a battalion
of dug-in Iraqi defenders from their bunkers, quickly allowing troops to
secure COBRA. CH-47D Chinooks (a medium transport helicopter) and ground
convoys operating along MSR NEWMARKET rushed fuel, ammunition, and other
supplies into COBRA. By the afternoon of 24 February, combat elements of
the 1st Brigade and the Aviation Brigade had established massive refueling
and rearming points at the FOB for the division’s helicopters. Meanwhile,
the 3d Brigade prepared to pass through COBRA and land in the Euphrates
valley.

Deteriorating weather threatened to cancel or delay some of the division’s
northward operations, but instead of waiting MG Peay and his 3d Brigade
commander decided to move early. In a series of assaults that began in
the late morning on G+1, 25 February, the 3d

[12]

[13]

Brigade left TAA CAMPBELL and flew a total of 155 miles north, taking
and holding positions in the Euphrates River valley in a region termed
AO EAGLE. This second assault effectively cut Highway 8, the main road
between Baghdad and Basra, that supported the Iraqi Army in Kuwait. With
the occupation of AO Eagle, the 101st had successfully advanced another
eighty-five miles northeast of COBRA and positioned forces about 145 miles
southeast of Baghdad. The division spent the next day (26 February, G+2)
reinforcing AO EAGLE and preparing for its eastward attack.

On the fourth day of the ground war, 27 February (G+3), two infantry
battalions from the division’s 2d Brigade and a third from the 1st Brigade
boarded helicopters that carried them almost another ninety-five miles
east to establish FOB VIPER. At this time, one route over the Euphrates
River and nearby swamps had been left open to channel the withdrawal of
the retreating Iraqis. Four Apache battalions (two from the attached 12th
Aviation Brigade and two from the 101st), operating from VIPER on the afternoon
of G+3, launched coordinated attacks over the Euphrates against enemy units
moving north from Basra into Engagement Area (EA) THOMAS. In what some
called the "Battle of the Causeway," the Apaches ravaged the Iraqi forces
seeking the "safety" of the north bank of the river. During the evening
hours of G+3, the division prepared to launch its 1st Brigade from FOB
COBRA through VIPER into EA THOMAS. This maneuver would have firmly closed
the door on the escaping Iraqi Army by blocking the north-south Basra road,
but early on the morning of G+4, 28 February, the 101st Division received
word of the cease-fire.

[14]

The coalition had won an unexpectedly rapid victory with far fewer casualties
than expected. U.S. Army units moved across the desert in rapid advances
that flattened all Iraqi resistance. Kuwait was liberated and Iraqi forces
were in full retreat. With the end of hostilities, the 101st secured and
manned defensive positions and collected enemy equipment for destruction.
The division also treated sick or injured Iraqi civilians and military
personnel. Although the 101st suffered no combat deaths during the four
day ground war, the attached 2d Battalion, 229th Aviation was less fortunate.
Five soldiers were killed when hostile fire brought down their Blackhawk
helicopter which was on a combat search and rescue mission to recover an
Air Force pilot. Iraqi forces captured three members of the Blackhawk crew
and released them soon after the war.

The Screaming Eagles returned to the United States in stages. In the
first phase, about nine hundred men from the 2d Brigade left FOB Viper
in Iraq for TAA Campbell on 6 March. Boarding commercial planes at Dhahran
on 8 March, the 2d Brigade soldiers flew back to Fort Campbell via Germany
and New York. Amid an Iraqi rebellion against Hussein and the turmoil of
thousands of Iraqi and Kuwaiti refugees, the rest of the 101st stood ready
in case of trouble. Gradually, division elements pulled back to Saudi Arabia,
leaving the 3d Brigade and elements of the division support command on
occupation duty in AO EAGLE until the 2d Armored Cavalry and the 11th Aviation
Brigade relieved the brigade around 24 March.

When the last 101st convoy left Iraq on 25 March, the rest of the division
was busy preparing for redeployment from Saudi Arabia to Fort Campbell.
After months in the desert the troops were eager to get home, but equipment
had to be cleaned, accounted for, and prepared for shipment to the United
States. Most division soldiers flew home between 3 and 15 April. MG Peay
arrived at Fort Campbell on 13 April, where he, four hundred soldiers,
and the returning divisional colors met a celebrating crowd that gathered
at the base’s airfield. For security, some soldiers remained in Saudi Arabia
with the division’s equipment while it was moved to Saudi ports for shipment
back to Fort Campbell. The last "Screaming Eagle" soldier left Saudi Arabia
for home on 1 May 1991.

In this interview, MG Peay offers his personal insights into his actions
as commander of the 101st during DESERT STORM while the historic events
were fresh in his mind. He explains how he prepared the 101st to fight,
and how they moved, fought, and thoroughly dominated Iraqi forces. What
is so significant, but difficult to appreciate, is the pace and range of
the 101st’s operations. In the midst of war, division elements moved 150
miles north behind enemy lines in two days and then turned east to continue
the attack. Greatly dependent on aviation for mobility, the 101st travelled
far greater distances and employed more firepower than pre-AirLand Battle
planners would have imagined.

STEPHEN E. EVERETT
Center of Military History

_________________________

NOTES

1 The 1993 edition of FM 100-5, Operations,
was first based on the operational experiences of recent combat in Panama
and Southwest Asia, and its authors added "versatility" as a fifth tenet.

2 The 101st was part of the XVIII Airborne Corps,
the Army's rapid deployment force, headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,
under the command of LTG Gary E. Luck. Other major units in the corps
(prior to DESERT SHIELD) included the 82d Airborne Division, 24th Infantry
Division (Mechanized), and the 10th Mountain Division (Light), as well
as several separate brigades and a large number of corps level combat support
and combat service support units.

3 The 197th Infantry Brigade arrived from Fort
Benning, Georgia by the middle of September and was attached to the 24th
Division as its third divisional brigade.

4 The 1st "Tiger" Brigade, 2d Armored Division,
which deployed as the 1st Cavalry Division's third brigade, was attached
to the U.S. Marines to provide them with the extra firepower of the brigade's
Abrams M1A1 tanks.

AIR ASSAULT IN THE GULF:

An interview with

MG J. H. Binford Peay, III

Commanding General,

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

A TRIBUTE TO

THE 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION

I’ll simply say I was blessed with great people. Generals Hugh Shelton
and Ron Adams were wonderful Assistant Division Commanders. Absolutely
"pros" and also fun to be with. William (Joe) Bolt, the Division Chief
of Staff, was a seasoned Colonel who had been the Division G-3 and a Battalion
Commander in the division earlier. Tough and qualified across the board
from tactics to finance. Stephen Weiss did what you wanted the Division
Command Sergeant Major to do. Out and about, fixing problems, enforcing
standards, and supporting the NCOs. All the Colonel Commanders did superbly.
Randy Anderson, the DIVARTY [Division Artillery] Commander, pulled together
a most sophisticated fire support plan in the covering force and rehearsed
it; our air defense, signal, and engineer troops were always committed.
They never had a break from the time of deployment until we returned to
Campbell. And the DISCOM [Division Support Command]—aviation maintenance,
main support, S&T, medical, etc.—kept the troops going forward. Stu
Gerald managed all that ably backed up by a splendid 101st Corps Support
Group that reconfigured "on the fly" from a TDA to TOE organization (at
Campbell) under Roy Beauchamp. Tom Garrett deployed within the first week
of assuming command of our large aviation brigade and performed marvelously.
Finally with Colonels Greg Gile, John MacDonald, Ted Purdom, Tom Hill,
and Bob Clark, we had five great brigade commanders that led from the front
and promoted standards throughout.

We had superb equipment with Apaches and Blackhawk helicopters, had
"slimmed" our division structure down in size making it more versatile,
had undergone a year of intensive training, and perfected our air assault
doctrine and tactical techniques. All of this was enhanced by a proud history
and hard-working professional soldiers, NCOs, and officers. The Screaming
Eagles and the Army were blessed with this team. And the Army deserves
a lot of credit for developing and growing these officers and this division.
What a thrill and an honor to be in their presence.

J.H. BINFORD PEAY
General, U.S. Army

INTERVIEW

MAJ WRIGHT: This is an Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM interview
with MG J.H. Binford Peay, III on 5 June 1991 in the Headquarters of the
101st Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The interviewing official
is MAJ Robert K. Wright from the XVIII Airborne Corps History Office, along
with Mr. Rex Boggs, Museum Curator, and 1LT Cliff Lippard, Division Historical
Officer. General Peay commanded the 101st Division in Southwest Asia, 1990-1991.

Sir, what were the highlights of your military career prior to coming
to the division; particularly those assignments that prepared you for the
challenges you would face as the division commander during DESERT SHIELD
and DESERT STORM?

MG PEAY: All of the assignments and duties are important. I think you
have to look at the assignments you had as a youngster that helped teach
you about soldiers and proficiency, as well as, perhaps, some of the career-building
assignments that you had later that provide seasoning and obviously, also
the great Army school system. I had some great NCOs guide, counsel, and
teach me in troop assignments initially in Germany. Later, I had an assignment
working for MG Autrey Maroun, former commanding general of the 5th Mech
[5th Infantry Division] stationed at Fort Carson, in the 1965 time frame,
as his senior aide. I learned a lot from that gentleman in terms of what
goes on in divisions, and about standards and discipline.

Clearly, the company and battery commands that I had in Vietnam in the
1967-1968 period, two different commands there, gave me my first taste
of the combat business . . . its horror and yet its boredom, and what you
must demand as a commander in combat. And later, as a battalion S-3 on
my second Vietnam tour in the 1st Cavalry Division, which was an airmobile
division employing many of the concepts that we use today in the 101st.

I had a direct support artillery battalion in the 25th [Infantry Division]
under COL [later LTG] Bill [William Henry] Schneider, who cared deeply
about people and families, and logistics as well as artillery. MG [later
GEN] [Robert] RisCassi was my division commander when I had a DIVARTY in
the 9th [Infantry Division] at Fort Lewis. He was a superb and respected
commander and teacher . . . using the innovative mission of the high-tech
light division he was charged to experiment with and put on the ground
. . . and taught us all so much about the fight at the operational level
as well as institutionalizing advanced training doctrine. We had a wonderful
time and the division was "packed" with great officers all working as a
team. LTG

[18]

(Retired) John Brandenburg had I Corps and under his leadership he built
it from ground-up, teaching us about command pace, style, responsibility,
and decentralization. He also knew the reserve [component] business and
we had a good time. Lewis was a terrific assignment.

Later, working for GEN John A. Wickham as his executive officer when
he was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, I learned a lot about
officership from him . . . caring, values, ethics, leadership . . . and
greatness. My tour in Command and General Staff College as the Deputy Commandant
was very helpful in continuing to study the evolving doctrine, both tactical
and operational. General [Carl E.] Vuono’s [Army Chief of Staff from 1987
through Operation DESERT STORM] imprint was placed on so many of us during
this period. I could have stayed there five years. Finally, being the assistant
division commander in the division for a year was very helpful in understanding
the division and being current as to the challenges that lay ahead.

I really don’t think you can point to any one assignment. I was very
fortunate to work for so many professionals over the years and their teaching
and example were instrumental in the desert war.

MAJ WRIGHT: When, exactly, did you take over command of the division,
sir?

MG PEAY: 3 August 1989.

MAJ WRIGHT: So roughly a year before the crisis started in Kuwait?

MG PEAY: A year ahead. I had been the assistant division commander and
had only been gone from the division for one year, so I was very fortunate
in a four-year period to have spent three years in the division.

MAJ WRIGHT: What was the focus of the training program within the division
on the eve of the crisis? In other words, what scenarios had you been looking
at for the potential employment of the division before the deployment to
Kuwait?

MG PEAY: We were a multipurpose division that was training across the
spectrum of conflict. In the three months prior to the alert, we were training
more on the Latin American scenario—and the Caribbean—against a number
of different war plans that we had focused in that area. But ninety days
prior to that we had worked high-intensity scenarios, and we had just come
off a CPX [Command Post Exercise] at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where
we had worked Southwest Asia as the focus of our war plan.

MAJ WRIGHT: That was INTERNAL LOOK?

MG PEAY: Yes, INTERNAL LOOK.

MAJ WRIGHT: Was that a useful exercise in terms of preparing you; or
was it somewhat deceptive in the sense that it was a map exercise?

MG PEAY: Well, I think it was helpful in that it put the focus back
on the Middle East. We had focused a lot on the Middle East the previous
year in our CPXs and map exercises. So after a

[19]

year, INTERNAL LOOK gave us the chance to focus back on that region.
In terms of exact terrain analysis and all that, the actual map exercise
was not properly set. It was focused in the Al Hufuf area [south southwest
of the city of Dhahran] in Saudi Arabia, not in the covering force or Rafha
[a Saudi city close to Iraq] area, where we finally kicked off DESERT STORM.
So the locations were different, but some of the terrain was similar. The
employment considerations going over there were about the same and we got
to work the battle staff and the BOS [Battle Operating System].

MAJ WRIGHT: What was the sequence of events
in alerting the division, sir? When did you get first word to stand by
and then start moving?

MG PEAY: I was at Virginia Beach, Virginia, on leave with my family
when the word came down. BG [Henry] Hugh Shelton and BG Ron Adams, and
COL Joe Bolt, division chief of staff, started through the normal kind
of N-Hour alert procedures.1 The division duty officer notified
the commands through our Emergency Operations Center. And then we started
the normal kinds of things that we had trained and trained for with corps
and division EDREs [Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercises]—movement
to US Atlantic Command Field Training Exercise OCEAN VENTURE, movement
to JRTC [Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Chaffee, Arkansas] and NTC
[National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California]. So there was nothing
out of the ordinary except this one was for real. I came back from leave
within a couple days. Back here, I just fitted into the process that was
well under way at that time. The team was already moving.

MAJ WRIGHT: That was a benefit of the division having an Notification-Hour
sequence and a regular EDRE program. When you got the word to go, everybody
knew what they were supposed to do; you didn’t have to do a lot of reinventing
the wheel at the last second.

MG PEAY: Well, that was a benefit. We had trained at that hard, but
the real difference was that we were a "seasoned team." We’d been together
for a year, and some of us had been together for three years. We knew each
other intimately, knew by the sound of our voices if we had a problem we
had to work on, felt we could discuss problems openly, and always were
focussed on how to make the air assault business more proficient and innovative.
From my perspective, it rolled just like clockwork. It was greased. We
met all the timelines and deployed out by rail, sea, convoy, and strategic
air.

MAJ WRIGHT: As the division started deploying, were you given a free
hand in configuring the package in increments? Were you told to go "shooters
heavy" [priority on combat elements] . . . ?

MG PEAY: We were directed early on to send the Apache [AH-64] gunship
helicopter battalions early, followed by the Cobras [AH-1S, helicopter
gunships].2 We were reinforced with an

[20]

Apache battalion from Fort Rucker and were told to send major elements
of the Aviation Brigade first. The Division Ready Brigade [DRB] moved out
next, which is a little different sequence. It’s a different order of move-out
procedure. We normally fall out in brigade task forces with full combat
support and combat service support slices. In this case, they wanted the
Aviation Brigade "pure." There were no major problems. We just had to juggle
it, and change the order of march out of here. We followed that force right
behind with the Division Ready Brigade and the rest of the division.

MAJ WRIGHT: Was Jacksonville, Florida the normal port that the division
had assumed it would go out of?

MG PEAY: Yes.

MAJ WRIGHT: So everybody knew the strip maps and knew the route?

MG PEAY: Well, we had gone to Jacksonville with certain of our leadership
on TEWTs [Tactical Exercise Without Troops], but we had never moved significant
elements to Jacksonville. We had to go down there and fall in with our
own port team and with a port support agency that was put together to also
help us out from Fort Benning, Georgia, [the army base nearest to Jacksonville].
Those were new procedures that had to be worked out, but professionals
made them quickly come together. Really, it was not the bottleneck that
it could have been, and I think the reason for that was the flexibility
of the leadership.

MAJ WRIGHT: Did most of your materiel move by ground convoy? Did your
helicopters self-deploy?

MG PEAY: We moved the division [equipment generally] by ground convoy.
The 101st Corps Support Group followed right behind it by rail. So we could
have gone either way. We practiced both procedures. The speed of this thing
just had the ground convoys closing a lot quicker, so we got that underway,
and then as the rail cars got in here and got going, we followed by rail;
self-deployed our helicopters to Jacksonville.

The strategic air movement of the men and equipment of our aviation
brigade and our 2d Brigade went from Campbell Army Airfield by U.S. Air
Force aircraft. Then our other soldiers departed in the follow-on flights
of Civilian Reserve Air Fleet [CRAF].3 This multi-faceted move
was well coordinated. In addition, the 5th Special Forces Group stationed
at Campbell flowed simultaneously with our 3rd Brigade. So Campbell Army
Airfield and the Garrison Support and Post Trans[portation] Team were very
busy.

[21]

MAJ WRIGHT: Did that move have to be timed to insure that the soldiers
didn’t arrive in Saudi Arabia too far ahead of the ships?

MG PEAY: Right. We held them. The average sailing time was twenty to
twenty-one days. All ten of our ships—1.2 million square feet—made it in
that particular time frame. We did not have any significant problems on
the seas, so we closed our soldiers and married them up with the ships
. . . and then married the full division together in Saudi Arabia, closing
with those that went early by strategic airlift.

MAJ WRIGHT: What kind of threat did you expect in the initial days of
your deployment? Did you figure that you would have to fight your way ashore?

MG PEAY: No, we were not going to fight our way ashore, but we thought
that we could be in combat in a very short period after arrival. That’s
why we tactically configured all of our loads, and went out as a combined
arms team, with the Division Ready Brigade. As it turned out, we were not
going to go immediately into combat, although we had the farthest north
mission in the covering force. We then started configuring to have our
passengers meet their equipment, draw it at port, and march north up into
sector.

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of your aviation assets, did you push out very
early the Apache-heavy force with the associated scout helicopters, as
well?

MG PEAY: Are you talking strategically or tactically?

MAJ WRIGHT: The strategic deployment.

MG PEAY: Normally, we don’t. Normally, we send out the Division Ready
Brigade, which has an Apache element with it. It has a cavalry element,
a lift element, a field artillery element. At this time, GEN H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, CINC CENTCOM [Commander in Chief Central Command], called
for the Apaches first. I think he did that for defense and deterrence purposes,
sending a signal that we had this anti-tank capability on the ground and
were prepared to use it.

MAJ WRIGHT: So as the rest of the division flowed in, then you were
able to return to your habitual brigade relationships?

MG PEAY: The same habitual brigade organization, but it was also the
integration of all the aviation across the division back under the division
fold.

MAJ WRIGHT: Through all this time, did you also have the added responsibility
for picking up the 12th Aviation Brigade as it flowed in from Europe?

MG PEAY: No. After we were in-country awhile, we were informed the 12th
Aviation Brigade was going to come, and at that time XVIII Airborne Corps
assigned them under our [the 101st’s] operational control. We did not know
we would get them until several weeks after we were in country.

[22]

MAJ WRIGHT: Did that pose any problem, or was the division staff, because
of dealing with so many helicopters, able to just accept another aviation
brigade—a second aviation brigade?

MG PEAY: I don’t think it caused any problems. We went through the normal
staff lay-down on receiving a unit, which gave us increased divisional
capability. I was glad to have them. They had a splendid, splendid commander
in COL Emmett Gibson. A quiet professional. I thought we worked very well
together as a team. They were a great addition, a great command.

MAJ WRIGHT: The Apache battalion out of Fort Rucker—the 2d Battalion,
229th Aviation—was added to the division from a corps-level asset?

MG PEAY: Right.

MAJ WRIGHT: So at some point, say in late September when the 12th was
up and functioning, you were controlling four or five gunship battalions?

MAJ WRIGHT: So at that point you had one of the larger air forces in
the world, if it were ranked that way.

MG PEAY: Well, I don’t know if it’s an air force. We had, with no question,
the largest helicopter fleet in the world under our division’s control.

MAJ WRIGHT: As you built that fleet up, had you experienced any learning
curve on the staff, to realize that things were going well, or that there
were things that needed to be fixed?

MG PEAY: Well, your question hits at the acclimatization challenge .
. . the impact on fuel and maintenance and all that business. We knew for
years in our division that you had to pay close attention to fueling and
maintenance. We called fueling "the Achilles heel" of our division. There
was a lot of safety considerations involved in that. There was a lot of
robustness; there were new pumping systems, many storage bags, ammo, and
fuel lines to be careful with in high temperatures and blowing sand. We
worked all through that, and we knew those were the challenges. We just
took time to work them, and we had the "pros" that could work them. So
what had been our stateside problem just became a larger problem, in terms
of magnitude, based on the volume that we now were supporting in the fight
and the hot temperatures and sand.

[23]

We did a lot of smart things acquiring newer pump systems, more fuel
bladders, more fuel bags, more sling gear. We did a lot of "matting" work
to hold the dust down. Painted blades every night to work against blade
erosion. Built up our "bank" time, [hours of flying time prior to scheduled
maintenance]. Those kinds of things. We got a few clamshells5
so our great maintainers could work around the clock under those things
to keep the birds turning, from a maintenance perspective. Flushed all
of our engines, used sanators6 out of our chemical company to
help do that. We just got very serious about maintenance and safety training,
and quickly spread those lessons learned throughout the division and our
recently attached units. We learned how to put in these, what appeared
to be semi-fixed facilities, i.e., matting or putting down oil solutions
to hold the dust down and clamshells. We learned how to do that very quickly,
so we could maintain the pace of operations and maintain our fleet, and
we tried to think of ways to rest our aviators in the heat of the day as
they had to fly at night.

MAJ WRIGHT: As the division settled into its initial base area, Camp
EAGLE II at King Fahd International Airport, did you have any problems
in getting space allocated for the division’s flight line, since you had,
I think, special operations people there and the Air Force was also a heavy
user of that facility?

MG PEAY: Well, anytime you’ve got projection armies that are going to
go into a relatively bare-base kind of environment, you run through the
initial frustrations of acquiring land and where you’re going to set up,
and that kind of thing. We had some frustrations involving that, but I
wouldn’t describe them as major problems.

We were allocated a portion on King Fahd International Airport for our
helicopters. It was obviously way too crowded. Yet at the same time, we
didn’t want to put the fleet initially way out in the desert and have it
"go to its knees" because of maintenance problems, because we didn’t have
the gear in there initially to provide the protection and maintenance of
the fleets on the desert floor. So we moved the division to a place we
built called Camp EAGLE II, about five miles northwest of King Fahd Airport;
we set up a ten thousand man base camp there to get our soldiers under
cover. When we got there, it was 142 degrees on the airfield tarmac, and
128 degrees on the desert floor, so we had to get the soldiers under cover,
or else they just wouldn’t have made it.

The same problem then accrued to the aviation fleet. We ended up putting
our aviators, our battalions, in the King Fahd parking lot to get them
under cover. Now that parking lot also was reinforced cement, so it provided
some defense also in terms of incoming [SS-1C] SCUD rounds and those kinds
of things. We had our engineers look at all that. We felt that it did offer
protection and it was massive in size, but I always worried about the terrorist
problem. We never liked this solution, but we had to get our aviation team
quickly under cover.

We were concerned all along with the volume of aviation on that airport.
I never was comfortable with that arrangement either. Incoming missiles,
terrorist threats, and aircraft safety were our concerns. So we quickly
started moving forward to the covering force area as the

[24]

brigades closed with their slices. We set up a rotating concept, where
we kept two-thirds of the division forward for thirty days, and one-third
of the division back at Camp EAGLE II and at King Fahd airport. We rotated
those in triangular fashion: thirty days forward, fifteen days back. This
allowed us to do some extensive training in the covering force. It provided
our aviation and the rest of our materiel a bed-down place much further
north, where it had a better reaction and response posture; and insured
greater security from incoming SCUDs back at King Fahd, because we’d thinned
down the fleet.

Yet at the same time these actions allowed us to come back and stand
down our soldiers [the brigade Task Force teams] for a number of days,
to do some close-in training, recovery, maintenance, and that kind of good
stuff across the entire division. So that was the concept.

MAJ WRIGHT: As you set up the two forward brigades, one worked out of
Forward Operating Base BASTOGNE [just south of the city of An Nu’ayriyah]
and the other one out of Forward Operating Base OASIS [to the west of BASTOGNE
and south of AO NORMANDY]?

MG PEAY: That’s right.

MAJ WRIGHT: And your position there was to provide
anchors on both ends of the covering force area,7 as a pivot
on each end of the line for your defensive mission?

MG PEAY: Well, those two bases were set up, because they were at about
the right distance that would support this enormous covering force. There
we received additional units, the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade that you
mentioned, plus we received the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment [ACR] out of
Fort Bliss, Texas, and the 75th and 212th Field Artillery Brigades from
Fort Sill, and a number of other smaller attachments, MP [Military Police]
companies, Chemical companies, those kinds of things.

We set up two Forward Operating Bases [FOBs], BASTOGNE and OASIS, that
were about a four-plus hour road march north of Camp EAGLE II, an hour-plus
by Blackhawk. Then forward of those forward operating bases were our 1st,
2d and 3d Brigades; the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment; the 12th Combat Aviation
Brigade; our Aviation Brigade itself; and two large Field Artillery brigades
out of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. We had all those working for us in this enormous
covering force. It covered New Hampshire and Vermont in terms of size.
Forward of those operating bases, we put in a new logistical concept, known
as logistical assault bases [LABs], that worked in tandem with the forward
operating bases, where we "tailored and reduced logistics" so it was very
flexible. We concentrated on the significant supplies, the war-fighting
supplies only, and that allowed us to be very mobile. That’s how we set
the covering force and then rehearsed our plans a number of times. Finally
we placed the Division Assault Command Post forward at BASTOGNE.

MAJ WRIGHT: The covering force battle being essentially given to the
101st, with the attachments, put a great deal of stress on you, because
you served as the linkage between the main battle area of the XVIII Airborne
Corps and the EPAC [Eastern Province Area Command] forces that were up
forward to the north: the Gulf Cooperation Council units and the Saudi
forces up

[25]

forward. And to a certain extent, you also had a coordination problem
with the Marines on your seaward flank, or eastern flank.

How had you envisioned the hand-over of the battle involving all those
different elements?

MG PEAY: Well, we put liaison teams forward with the Saudis. The Saudis
also had special operations forces that we worked with as well. The combination
of the liaison teams and the special operating forces teams allowed us
then to work the reinforcing fires from the United States Air Force, from
our own Apaches, and our long range field artillery. So the first thing
we did was try to work through the coordination process, to call for fires,
to reinforce with fires, in case those forces were getting hit.

From there we attempted, not with enormous success, to work detailed
plans of passage of lines as to where the Saudis would pass through [heading
south]. We were never able—with final authority—to understand if they would
pass to the south for a short distance and then cut over to the east to
the coast, or if they would pass [due south] on through our covering force,
back to the 24th Infantry Division main battle area and then to the rear.
That was one of the frustrations, among others, getting our hands around
everyone in our zone and orchestrating the action.

The Marine Corps was on our right. We had a boundary. There was some
concern between the two forces as to whether a part of that flank was open
and not secure, because forces were or were not physically on the ground.

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of how you envisioned the defensive battle being
fought had the Iraqis come across the border, did you see them coming in
a single, heavy push down the coast or did you envision that they would
come in a broad front?

MG PEAY: I can really only speak to my part of that. In our portion,
the corps portion, we perceived an attack by three divisions in the first
echelon. Two of those divisions would come straight south, towards An Nu’ayriyah
[city near FOB BASTOGNE], which our troops nicknamed "Bastogne," because
of the same semblance of arteries and lines of communications to our previous
history.8 So we envisioned an attack straight down through our
covering force by two divisions, with the third division (reinforced) coming
in from the northwest, then south, and then turning southeast, right down
the TAPLINE [Trans-Arabian Pipeline] Road. The correlation [or balance]
of forces was weighted to the enemy in terms of artillery and tanks. Yet,
the way we put the covering force in and the combined arms fight we were
going to fight; the fact that we knew the ground; the fact that we had
rehearsed it and rehearsed it and rehearsed it, and trained on it—made
me very confident that the Iraqis would run into a wall of fire with all
the reinforced artillery that we had; all the TOWs [Tube-launched, Optically-tracked,
Wire-guided antitank weapons] that we had deployed in mobile teams; our
Air Force; and our Apaches. Frankly, I don’t think he would have gotten
through the covering force area.

MAJ WRIGHT: As the plan was laid out, assuming that you had handed over
the fight then to the main battle area, did you have an assignment to pass
through the 24th, reconstitute, and then participate in the counterattack
with the 1st Cavalry Division?

[26]

MG PEAY: No, we . . . [would not have passed] through the 24th. The
3d ACR . . . [was to pass] through the 24th and. . . to corps reserve.
They . . . [would be] detached from me once they crossed into the main
battle area. The 12th Combat Aviation Brigade passed back through our 3d
Brigade and went to an assembly area where they offered local counterattack
capability. Our other brigades conducted a normal covering force mission.
Pulling back, passing through—in the case of our 1st Brigade passing through
our 2d Brigade. Our 3d Brigade came on back through the 24th and cut over
to the west, and then we reformed the division as a "guard force" on the
west side of the 24th Division. We then were prepared to provide a screen
cover along the west side of the 1st Cavalry Division that had the counterattack
mission as it counterattacked from the south to the north, with focus to
the east.

MAJ WRIGHT: Had it gone to that stage, and had we gone to a counterattack,
did you envision, because you had such a preponderance of the deep strike
assets within the corps, that you would be stretched to maintain the pressure
and the pace? If we counterattacked, did you see the enemy collapsing fairly
quickly so that we could have made a big dash towards Kuwait?

MG PEAY: No, I don’t think we went that far with it. At that stage we
were never considering anything more than a reestablishment of a new covering
force area north of the 1st Cav, and then to await instructions for future
operations.

MAJ WRIGHT: In October, as the theater starts maturing, I know from
your situation reports and commander’s comments in the situation reports
that you began talking a lot about the importance of planning for future
operations and envisioning what the mature theater would look like. Would
you elaborate a little bit on what your thinking was, and how the Army
starts looking at the build-up of force?

MG PEAY: I’m not so sure I ever got a good feel for what the mature
theater would look like. I understood the XVIII Airborne Corps part of
it. I always had concerns about enough haul capability at the theater level
or the ability to distribute supplies internal to the theater as our outfit
was daily providing trucks and lift helicopters. And that’s not a knock
on the theater, it’s just a part of how you have to fight, and there were
a lot of priorities. The VII Corps was coming in, and as we moved to a
new mission, I wanted to come back south and do one or two days of refitting
before moving that far to the west for the attack. So I’m not sure the
theater ever really got mature. And I’m not so sure it ever would, under
these circumstances.

MAJ WRIGHT: I guess the theater gave the 101st responsibility to chop
[or attach] one brigade to VII Corps to help them as they displaced into
the desert, and sort of screen them. Did that cause you some problems,
given the fact that you had wanted to get that stand-down time to do maintenance?

MG PEAY: Well, it wasn’t so much getting stand-down time to do maintenance.
I just wanted to do a little refit across the board: from soldier uniforms
to issuing ammunition, to going over rules of engagement, to giving the
soldiers some rest and cleanliness one final time. I just wanted to do
some basic soldier business in EAGLE II for a couple days. There was no
problem.

[27]

Again, I think it’s part of our EDRE program back at home, and it’s
the capability our division has. CENTCOM wanted a force that could very
quickly get over to the Hafar al Batin [a town near the TAPLINE Road and
adjacent to] the Wadi al Batin area [that extended northward to Iraq],
to protect against what was perceived as a spoiling attack on the night
of I believe the 15th or 16th of January.

We alerted our 2d Brigade, because it was well forward in the covering
force area. Moved it by our organic aviation and ground [transportation
assets]. We gave it one of our division Apache battalions, a lift battalion,
an artillery battalion, and further beefed up the brigade task force and
quickly moved in (in less than a two-day period) up in the Wadi area. At
that time, 2d Brigade commanded by COL Ted Purdom was "chopped" initially
to VII Corps, and then later "chopped" to the 1st Cavalry Division, that
came up from the south to provide protection in the King Khalid Military
City [KKMC] area [south of TAPLINE Road]. We did that, and then we continued
with our plans to take the division (minus) back down south [for refitting]
and then start the seven-day movement of forces far to the northwest [all
in January].

MAJ WRIGHT: As you worked through the movement to the west, how soon
in the planning process had you been alerted by corps that you would be
going way out to the west?

MG PEAY: We had been working a war plan out there since mid-December.
In fact, we called it DESERT RENDEZVOUS I and then DESERT RENDEZVOUS II,
as I recall. The first plan had us far, far to the west. That was logistically
unsupportable,9 because of the distances, and secondly, it did
not meet the time lines, logistically, from the viewpoint of the rest of
the theater. We could not use up the theater’s haul [transportation] assets
to push us that far west, because if you take away from those haul assets,
they would not be able to move the rest of the corps, or the rest of the
theater. So we developed a RENDEZVOUS II plan, which brought us a good
thirty-five miles east of Rafha where we eventually launched our attack
from assembly areas in that location [Tactical Assembly Area (TAA) CAMPBELL].

So from December on, we had been eyeing that area, and had started conceptual
thinking on how to move the division that way. I think our training at
home, particularly the way that we had "multi-deployed," [using different
transportation modes to move different elements of the division] going
to Saudi Arabia as well as to many of our training exercises, enabled us
then to multi-deploy the division strategically, intra-theater, by U.S.
Air Force [C-130 Hercules aircraft], by ground transport with the division
transportation office, and by self-deploying our aviation assets. That
combination closed the division in seven days.10

MAJ WRIGHT: Which represented a substantial movement of men and materiel
over a fairly substantial distance.

[28]

MG PEAY: I think we went more than 700 miles to Rafha plus all our necessary
supplies to fight.

MAJ WRIGHT: In the corps scenario for what would
turn out to be DESERT STORM, was the 101st always envisioned, as the corps
evolved that plan, as the deep strike capability of the corps when it went
to the offense?

MG PEAY: I don’t know if "always." I think it was for this plan. There
was some consideration of having the 82d Airborne Division jump. They discounted
that because of winds, desert conditions, unknown enemy situations, and
they also wanted the 82d to be with the smaller French division, and so
they decided not to jump. So our division had the mission that we had trained
for, for years.

MAJ WRIGHT: And this was the first time ever that we had attempted to
fight that deep a battle. We’ve trained on it, but this was the first time
that it was ever really executed, in the sense of being able to project
that kind of force that deep by other than a jump.

MG PEAY: It’s the first time in history that we put that many aircraft
and that many sorties on one day that far north. For DESERT STORM, we basically
went 155 miles north to [AO EAGLE]; 95 miles the first day [to FOB COBRA].
We reached 155 miles the second day [AO EAGLE at LZ SAND]. The first day
alone we flew about 370-plus aircraft and over a thousand sorties on G-Day
alone, 24 February.

MAJ WRIGHT: You felt fairly confident with your staff. As you looked
at the mission that you had been given by LTG Gary Luck [Commanding General,
XVIII Airborne Corps] to put the force into what would be FOB COBRA in
Iraq, were you confident that you could accomplish that mission? Were you
confident that you were trained and ready to go?

MG PEAY: Well, I felt we were seasoned. The pace of training at Campbell,
the NTC, and JRTC plus corps exercises the previous year had been enormous.
The six months in the desert just "added" to it. Our soldiers were battle-hardened,
or desert-tough before we went in. Our team was well greased and oiled.
Our "battle notes" were solid.11 We had rehearsed and practiced
a lot things in that six months over there. Then we went to the reconnaissance
phase, G-minus, it turned out to be a ten-day reconnaissance. We had planned
for seven, but in the ten-day reconnaissance period we got a pretty good
feel for what was out there [north of TAA CAMPBELL].

We took down some of those air defenses early on. We captured an enemy
infantry battalion.12 We learned a lot about the battlefield,
talking to those guys. We learned a lot about their soldiers. I felt there
was enough distance in there to evade the air defense concerns, and I thought
we could get deep, then, particularly after we talked to some of the EPWs
[Enemy

[29]

Prisoners of War]. I just didn’t feel that they were the same kind of
soldiers that we had in our Army. I also didn’t think they knew where we
were. So when we attacked out of there on G-Day, it turned out that was
true. We got very deep, long before the enemy knew it.

MAJ WRIGHT: As you assigned the taskings internally within the division
for the execution of the plan, what factors came into play in assigning
the different brigades their responsibilities?

MG PEAY: Well, each of the brigades could have done any of these missions.
I was very comfortable with COL Tom Hill in 1st Brigade, because we had
done quite a bit of work on setting up forward operating bases with his
brigade where we had to get a lot of fuel in and built-up quickly. I knew
that Tom Hill understood my intent in terms of what I wanted done logistically
to support this operation, so I was very comfortable in continuing to give
him that mission.

The 2d Brigade was late closing in the TAA [Tactical Assembly Area CAMPBELL].
They closed during the reconnaissance period before G-Day, so I didn’t
want to give them the initial shot, 155 miles deep. I wanted to go with
Bob Clark and the 3d Brigade, because they were available, and we could
do more rehearsing and go over the plans in great detail with him, without
doubling up COL Ted Purdom, [the 2d Brigade commander] with several additional
plans to think about at that time.

So the concept then was to let Hill go in first [to FOB COBRA]; let
Clark follow deep [to AO EAGLE]; bring Purdom up to COBRA very quickly;
and then have Purdom conduct a similar kind of thing as Clark, far to the
east to FOB VIPER, as we headed toward Tallil and then Basra.13
Any of the three brigades could have done the missions, any of the missions,
whether it was setting up and securing the logistical bases, conducting
the air assaults, or cutting lines of communication deep.

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of the task structure, you beefed up 1st Brigade
with an additional battalion for that first day, to . . . ?

MG PEAY: To seize the objective. Forward Operating Base COBRA was two-thirds
the size of the entire Fort Campbell area. We spread it out because I wasn’t
sure of the chemical threat, and I did not want to have a midair accident
in there at night during refueling. So we put in an enormous number of
fuel bladders and fuel blivets14 and hosing, and we wanted to
get some business done in a hurry. So we put four infantry battalions in
there, and a hot refuel kind of thing to push out the aircraft as quickly
as possible around the clock. Simultaneously, the Chinook guys brought
in bladders of fuel to build up that capability for the attack and the
lift birds to use. LTC John D. Broderick [Commander, 426th Supply and Transport
Battalion] did some remarkable innovation in the fuel and pump business
as he set up what the troops nicknamed a bunch of "7-Eleven stores with
gas."

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of how the division employs its infantry for any
kind of operation, it is pretty much the way you actually used them in
this one. The infantry were part of the com-

[30]

bined arms team. Therefore, you had to have the artillery up with them,
their TOWs had to be up with them, and then you worked them very closely
with the helicopters so that they worked out of the same bases. You didn’t
have some of the communications problems that earlier generations had.
I’m thinking about the use of the helicopter in Vietnam, bringing them
in and then having the helicopters take off again and just leaving your
troops out there. It’s one difference I noticed, for example, from the
airmobile usages in Vietnam to the air assault techniques today. On the
eve of G-Day, the 1st Brigade camped right alongside the helicopters they
would board in the morning; and then at COBRA, the helicopters were always
within that same area. Did this arrangement result in tighter bonding,
more teamwork, maybe?

MG PEAY: Well, that’s generally correct. You can do it both ways. Compared
to most units, I think, we have a more integrated approach to aviation
in our unit. But then you can use the infantry in different ways. You can
use the infantry to secure the aviation at times, while you go deep with
the aviation; or you can use the aviation to be quickly available to move
the infantry around the battlefield to cut the various lines of communication
or destroy the enemy. In this war we did both of them.

MAJ WRIGHT: And again, having your own aviation assets inherently gave
you flexibility over, say, a standard infantry division?

MG PEAY: No question about that. You know a lot of people say we are
a light division. We really are kind of a "medium" division. We’re a multipurpose
division that can do both—fight low and high intensity. So it’s a special
division in terms of its structure, its organization, and brings those
special pieces to the battle area. In this case, it was assigned suitable
missions. The missions that we had were exactly the right ones for our
division.

MAJ WRIGHT: To focus on anti-tank capability a little bit. Between the
HMMWV [M-998-series High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle] mounted TOWs,
which have, especially in that desert environment, great mobility; and
the anti-armor systems that you have in your attack helicopters, both the
Cobras [with TOWs] and the Apaches [with Hellfires]; and then with the
OH-58D Kiowas giving you the lasing, or targeting capability, to bring
in Copperhead fires and things like that—the division really was a lot
more lethal than, say, an Iraqi armored division, because your systems
out-ranged his tanks by a considerable degree.

MG PEAY: Yes, that’s the way we fought—combined arms. Our artillery
didn’t out-range his artillery. We’ve got light artillery. But from the
corps perspective, with the reinforcing fire you get the addition of heavy
artillery, and we moved ours around in raid concept to offset the range
deficiency. It was that combination of artillery-lasing; lasing for smart
bombs from the Air Force; the 180 HMMWV TOWs in this division; and the
[TOWs] in the Apaches and Cobras. We’ve got an awful lot of firepower,
if we bring it to bear.

[31]

MAJ WRIGHT: As you look at your planning, did you envision primarily
using the Apaches to do the night fighting and the Cobras to do the day
fighting?

MG PEAY: As a general rule, that’s kind of the way it evolved, with
some exceptions.

MAJ WRIGHT: In the cross-border operations that you alluded to early
on, you had the initial surprise of capturing that full battalion. It was,
I guess about G minus 3, when those folks surrendered [see footnote
#12; page 28]?

MG PEAY: Yes, somewhere about then.

MAJ WRIGHT: Had you been thinking at all that that might happen or did
that become your first surprise indicator that they really didn’t know
where we were?

MG PEAY: Yes, the first group we captured, it seems to me, was about
a platoon, much earlier on.15 We didn’t get too much out of
that, I don’t think. Then our intelligence and our helicopters, reported
back that they had seen some fresh diggings and other things, and all this
was in the vicinity of what turned out to be our Main Supply Route NEWMARKET.

I was going to bust up there at H+3, three hours after we kicked off,
with Task Force CITADEL under LTC Jim McGarity, who had three battalion
sets of [supply] trains with him. I didn’t want that process to get slowed
up, and I didn’t want to get in a fight in what would then be the rear
of where our assault had gone forward [i.e. FOB COBRA]. So we went in and
looked at that a little bit harder before G-Day and uncovered this entire
battalion. We waited a day and thought about it, and just decided we’d
better "take it out." So we went back in there, and the Cobras initially
did some shooting and then we put a battalion of infantry16
on the ground . . . I guess it was a reinforced company (plus) . . . and
took them out of there.

MAJ WRIGHT: And they collapsed fairly quickly, with the preliminary
pounding. It softened them up so that you didn’t have to spend a lot of
infantrymen digging them out.

MG PEAY: That’s right. About a four-hour total operation from start
to finish.

MAJ WRIGHT: Was that a surprise?

MG PEAY: I didn’t think they’d quit quite as easily as that. The next
morning I went down and talked to their battalion commander at great length,
some of their NCOs, and some of their soldiers. I got a very vivid picture
of the battlefield. In fact, I called MG Barry McCaffrey, [who was the]
Commanding General, 24th Infantry Division, and told him that I thought
this thing would roll a lot quicker than we thought it would, because the
"will to fight" was not there.

[32]

They were still well-groomed, they had relatively good-looking uniforms;
they had new weapons. They were hungry, but they weren’t starving. And
to a man, they just had no liking for Saddam. And so all of that started
to tell me things. The other thing that I picked out was that they felt
they’d done their honor if they’d fought for a while, say an hour, and
then they could quit with honor.

And so I started to get a picture of the battlefield, got some other
feelings for where the air defense sites were and other indications where
some enemy were located from talking to the battalion commander and his
leaders. So we went back and said, "Hey, let’s take a little more risk.
Let’s open this thing up; let’s go a little bit faster." I just felt so
much better about our own soldiers. I just felt so much better about our
own guys versus the threat.

MAJ WRIGHT: I believe the original corps’ proposal put the initial placement
of FOB COBRA farther north, and you moved it slightly south to keep it
within the turn radius of the CH-47s.

MG PEAY: Yes. There was a mixture of reasons for that. One of them clearly
was the maximum distances that the planes [CH-47D Chinook helicopters]
could fly before they had to come back and refuel. Our load planners did
a great job of engineering all of that in order to get the exact distances.
The other was that I was trying to stay out of the way of Objective WHITE,17
where the French 6th Light Armored Division forces [on the division’s left
or western flank] were going to be. I didn’t want to get caught north of
what turned out to be MSR VIRGINIA, and then have forces flowing through
our FOB, which it turned out they had to do a little bit anyway, as they
moved to the east in the corps plan.

MAJ WRIGHT: But VIRGINIA was the only hard surfaced east-west lateral
communication. The whole corps effort, logistically, in the early days
had to come up TEXAS, take a right, and go down VIRGINIA. So if you stayed
south of VIRGINIA, then your trains coming up to COBRA didn’t have to try
to cross at right angles?

MG PEAY: Right, it’s part of that. The other part is security. We didn’t
want to get caught there, having a major security challenge passing forces
through our FOB. It turned out we just had to put up with some of that.

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of the cross-border operations, did the Apache-Kiowa
team prove itself at night, as you made those raids? Did they have any
problems?

MG PEAY: Well, weather was a problem throughout. First, I think all
of them performed well. Our Cobra guys performed well, too. The nighttime
capability worked in favor of the Apache. Again, it was zero illumination
when we kicked this attack off, which was the worst possible time for our
guys to wear goggles: a lot of dust, great distances, and bad weather.
In fact, the kick-off on G-Day had to be delayed an hour because of weather.
We lost an OH-58 that morning in a crash as it was trying to get out and
come back in difficult weather. So it was a combination of all of that.

[33]

But again, we had trained for six months in those kinds of conditions,
and for the entire time our aviators—and I think that’s one of the success
stories—had flown under very tough conditions, below minimums almost the
entire time. And I just think that we were accustomed/seasoned to it.

MAJ WRIGHT: The one cross-border operation that we didn’t really mention
was the one that kicked off the air war. Would you like to mention briefly
the 101st’s role in setting the stage for the Air Force to make its first
strike?

MG PEAY: Well, a lot of it I think today is still somewhat classified,
but I can give you the unclassified part. We worked in the November-December
time frame with the Special Operating Forces, back in the Camp EAGLE II
area, training with them. Our plan was to move far to the west and then
"take out" the radars with our Apaches,18 so it would open up
a large corridor where our fast-moving air force assets then could move
north to Baghdad on their bombing runs. That’s exactly what we did. We
went in there early on—I want to say around 15 January—17 January, somewhere
in there.

MAJ WRIGHT: About 0200 on the 17th, sir?

MG PEAY: That sounds right. Early in the morning, under darkness. It
was a long flight over there, refueling a number of times going across
west of KKMC. We jumped out of there [Saudi border] north. It surprised
them; we hit the radar sites and came on back.

MAJ WRIGHT: Did you learn something from that operation, that you were
able to focus on during the immediate couple of days before G-Day, in terms
of the cross-border ops?

MG PEAY: I think every one of these little events gave our soldiers
more confidence. In this case it gave the pilots more confidence. When
you get in there, you can’t be seen at night. The Apache’s got enormous
capability. So we just started doing more of those kind of things in our
planning.

MAJ WRIGHT: To follow up on the training issues and the confidence issues.
One of the general comments I’ve heard from a lot of folks was that the
opportunity during that six-month train-up period to actually fire the
high-cost high-tech rounds really paid dividends, because it allowed our
soldiers to develop the confidence that the weapons that had been so controversial
would actually work—and, as it turned out, in many cases, exceed the specifications.
Would you agree that confidence was a factor?

MG PEAY: I think that’s a little bit of a mixed bag. First, we did do
more live firing over there than we did at home. We did not fire a lot
of our expensive rounds, because we were hoarding them, or protecting them,
for use in combat. So the constant challenge over there was that you couldn’t
fire all the ammunition for training and not have any to fight the next
night. So we had to suppress our appetite in training to build up our stocks.
I just think each soldier was confident

[34]

going in. I think that the longer he stayed in the desert, he became
more and more confident. Whether it’s firing live ammunition, or just living
in the desert. We had a captive audience there for twenty-four hours a
day, and seven days a week, and it worked.

MAJ WRIGHT: I think during the course of the operation that we had also
talked about the fact that in that train-up period, because we had the
soldiers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, there were no distractors.
They worked very hard. So the potential maintenance backlog, say in the
large number of flying hours that you put on your birds, did not become
much of an issue because your maintenance capability went up rather dramatically.

MG PEAY: Yes. You had that continuous maintenance challenge, but again,
that wasn’t the only reason. The other reason was that we had all the repair
parts. So it was pretty easy, when you had the parts.

MAJ WRIGHT: Yes, when you don’t have to wait days
to get parts. At H-Hour on G-Day, where were you positioned, sir?

MG PEAY: I was in the Division Main Command Post, which was south of
TAPLINE in our Tactical Assembly Area CAMPBELL.19 I had BG Hugh
Shelton, Assistant Division Commander, Operations, in our Jump CP, which
is a Blackhawk helicopter configured with a special communications package.
I also had BG Ron Adams, Assistant Division Commander, Support, in the
Division Rear CP. COL [William] "Joe" Bolt, my Chief of Staff, and I stayed
there in the Division Main for about three hours until we got the attack
going. Then I went on up to the 1st Brigade "staging area," worked through
the launching of the aircraft out of there. The aircraft continued to turn,
headed north. We closed our Div[ision] Assault CP on the Jump CP by noon.
I eventually went on to COBRA on G-day at about 1000-1100 hours.

MAJ WRIGHT: In this configuration of the way CAMPBELL was laid out,
the Rear CP was actually north of TAPLINE Road [MSR DODGE] and was technically
further forward than the Main.

MG PEAY: That’s right.

[35]

MAJ WRIGHT: Why was that laid out that way, sir?

MG PEAY: The tactical assembly area was about twenty-five miles by twenty-five
miles in size, an enormous assembly area. It was great. We wanted to keep
the DISCOM [Division Support Command] forward of TAPLINE Road to cut down
the distances they had to travel as they went forward and we didn’t want
the DISCOM logging through the other units. The Rear CP was located in
the DISCOM complex configuration. Over the six month period we remained
at Camp EAGLE, we had displaced our Div Main a hundred times. We cut it
down in size; it was a small Division Main compared to most and was mobile
and agile. We had not envisioned staying in place back there; so the Rear
would [remain in] the rear, and the Main would move well forward. Because
the battle broke so quickly and we had such good communications, just as
we prepared to move the Main the war ended. We were controlling it adequately
with our Division Assault CP, our Division Jump CP forward, and the command
helos.

MAJ WRIGHT: When you moved up on that first day, the 24th of February,
you moved into FOB COBRA, and set up the Assault CP up there?

MG PEAY: That’s right.

MAJ WRIGHT: About what time did you get up there, sir?

MG PEAY: You’d have to pull the records. I think the Assault CP probably
went in around noon. We had the Jump CP in there early on, say at 0900
or 1000. The Jump was operational, because we flew in, but it was operational
on the ground I’d say in the 0900 or 1000 time frame. But the Assault [CP]
probably was in by noon. And I was operating out of my Huey [helicopter],
with its C&C [command and control] capability throughout that particular
day. Eventually, I got into COBRA between 1000 and 1100, I think.

MAJ WRIGHT: As the initial assault went in you had the brief firefight,
or I guess actually about two hours worth of joint air and artillery pounding,
before Alpha Company of the 1st of the 327 actually swept and policed up
that [enemy] battalion.20 Were you concerned at all as you heard
the reports that they had made contact there?

MG PEAY: No. At first it was a small contact with LTC Gary Bridges’
3d Battalion, 327th Infantry, in the northeast. The Iraqi Battalion folded
very quickly, and we captured a number of prisoners there.

The one to the northwest of LTC Frank R. Hancock’s 1st Battalion, 327th
Infantry took place in a formidable set of bunkers. A battalion (reinforced)
was in there, in a brigade size complex. It had a lot of air defense in
there. We could have gotten hurt. I talked to COL Hill. I could hear his
voice on the radio. I felt [Hill] had [the situation under control]. He
was asking all the right questions. LTC Frank Hancock was moving his forces
around correctly. Hill was insuring that

[36]

the battalion commander had the right forces in there. And a young lieutenant
that was far forward made the right decisions early on, in terms of pulling
back and pounding it with artillery and air, and then rolling up the left
side, where they captured the battalion commander.21 And after
several hours they brought it [the complex] to its knees. So I could hear
all that, and I felt the right kinds of actions were being taken, so I
wasn’t that concerned. I knew we were in a fight, but that’s what we were
going up there for—to fight.

MAJ WRIGHT: Now, as I understand it, the initial intelligence indicated
there was, or appeared to be, some type of an Iraqi logistics complex in
that little oasis right at the base of that hill, but that we really didn’t
think there were that many people in there.

MG PEAY: That turned out to be an entirely different kind of complex,
we found. It was the reserve battalion for the 45th Division that the French
were fighting on our west, and it had significant air defense and crew-served
weapons capability in there. It had some superb bunker complex systems
that were dug in. That could have been a pretty tough little fight. It
didn’t turn out that way.

MAJ WRIGHT: Again, the same reaction on the part of the Iraqi battalion
as that first battalion you had met down by the escarpment?

MG PEAY: No, this was a regular battalion. The fight there went on about
two to four hours. This group did not fold or quit as quickly. What happened
though was that after that period of time, maneuvering and pounding with
artillery, we captured the battalion commander. We convinced him to have
the rest of his battalion quit or they would be destroyed. His battalion
was spread out. He had another bunker complex further to the north that
was part of his battalion. So we really had two positions that we had to
uncover, and we got him to convince his battalion after several hours to
call it off.

MAJ WRIGHT: That then secured, basically, the COBRA area, because you
had pretty good eyes from the air through reconnaissance assets. You didn’t
face the situation of a World War II airborne drop where it was very hard
for the guys on the ground to know whether they had really secured the
area.

MG PEAY: We had pushed all of our TOWs way out. We had close to eighty
TOWs, I’d say, that we’d pushed way out. And then we had the air over top
of that, that was further out. So we had good eyes on the area. We had
linked up. We knew where the French were. We were talking to the 82d that
was going to pass through us.

MG PEAY: We talked to the 24th Infantry Division coming up from the
south. At 1500 or so in the afternoon the 24th was told to kick off early
versus the next day by the XVIII Airborne Corps. So we felt good about
that. We quickly brought up our 2d Brigade to

[37]

COBRA. It was going faster than we thought it would. Decided to bring
the 2d Brigade up on G-Day instead of G+2, because we thought it gave us
greater flexibility for further missions and saved "blade time."22

MAJ WRIGHT: By the evening were some of your initial assets already
out on Highway 8, or "had eyes" on Highway 8?

MG PEAY: Had eyes on Highway 8. We did not have ground forces on it.
Looked at LZ [Landing Zone] SAND, where they were going to go in the next
morning. And looked further down MSR TEXAS, all the way up towards what
was "old Objective GREEN." So we had the ground reconnaissance going in
from the division, and we were also building up logistics in COBRA. We
had all kinds of logistical aviation actions going on throughout the day.23

MAJ WRIGHT: The punching through by the ground convoys up MSR NEWMARKET
was, in essence, an unopposed movement.

MG PEAY: That’s right.

MAJ WRIGHT: And moved relatively smoothly?

MG PEAY: That’s right. Our engineer guys actually were out in front,
cutting the road. They cut across the desert floor; they built the road;
and then we followed right behind them, pretty much unopposed since the
enemy battalion had been removed during the reconnaissance phase.

MAJ WRIGHT: Was there any significant terrain obstacle on that route
other than that first punch through the escarpment?

MG PEAY: Not to my knowledge. Lots of holes, loose road dirt . . . but
a long dusty march to get through the escarpment.

MAJ WRIGHT: Speaking as one who rode in that ground convoy, we moved
out quicker. I think our jump-off time was accelerated, it was supposed
to be the morning of G+1, and we actually went out in the afternoon of
G-Day itself. Is that a function of the general speeding up of the whole
battle plan?

MG PEAY: Yes.

[38]

MAJ WRIGHT: Your logistics build-up took place quickly enough within
COBRA so that you had no problem maintaining the operating tempo, then?

MG PEAY: That’s correct.

MAJ WRIGHT: As I understand it, you did not make an effort to push a
lot of your AVIM [Aviation Intermediate Maintenance] up forward. The intent
was to try to keep the rearm and the refuel capability at its maximum?

MG PEAY: We didn’t bring the "heavy" AVIM up. We were prepared to do
that, when we thought we were going to go all the way up to Tallil, not
knowing where the fight was going to go from that standpoint. At that time,
to move towards Tallil we were going to break the maintenance of the battalion
into two parts and "echelon" it [send packets in slices] forward with aviation
assets. We had not planned to do that out of COBRA.

MAJ WRIGHT: We move on to the night of February 24-25. As you went to
sleep that night, did you sleep back at the Main, or do you stay up at
the Assault CP? G-Day.

MG PEAY: I came back at night . . . got caught several times trying
to get back in at night because of the darkness, had to set down the helo
many times due to dust, haze, and fog. But we came back late that night
(2300/2400 hours). It was going well; I felt good about it. I wanted to
be able to talk to my Chief of Staff face-to-face, tell him what I’d seen
that day; be sure that we had logistically a force ready to continue the
push the next day. So that’s why I came back.

MAJ WRIGHT: At that point, were you fairly confident that this was going
to be a low-cost operation, or were you still uncertain, because you didn’t
know where the enemy was going to make his stand, and if he would unleash
chemical munitions on us?

MG PEAY: Well, I thought we still had some tough fighting ahead. I thought
the fight "ahead" was [north] into the Euphrates and then [east] towards
Basra. It was a case of how many forces and pockets that we were going
to have to by-pass as we got in there, and what that would do to you in
terms of slowing you up; sustainment costs . . . and cleaning up the battlefield
as we by-passed.

MAJ WRIGHT: We had, I believe, a contingency plan. Instead of hooking
the 101st east to Basra once you made it to the Euphrates Valley, you could
have, if required, turned west and moved up to threaten Baghdad.

MG PEAY: We did not have direction from GEN Schwarzkopf to develop that
plan. His plan, all along, was to turn right and go towards Basra. But
in the division we made a number of different contingency plans, of which
several were to go from Objective GREEN, straight on up the river valley
to Baghdad, if required. It was strictly a contingency plan in the event
that my superiors had directed me to move quickly. We wanted to be able
to go. LTC Randy Mixon did a great job as the division plans officer—lots
of details, lots of contingency plans to frag off of if it [would be]

[39]

required. The Baghdad plan would have put the division up to the northeast,
east, and south of the city with lots of helos blocking and flying around
and a good psychological plan. We had hoped that we could do this and turn
[Iraqi] forces [against] Saddam. Mixon’s and the division staff’s plan
was solid. We did not get the support of Secretary Cheney, or Generals
Powell and Schwarzkopf who only "noted" [the plan, but did not approve]
during our backbriefs to them.

MAJ WRIGHT: And were you fairly confident that the division had the
capability to make that kind of a punch? Largely driven by the way Saddam’s
forces were disposed? You really didn’t have a heavy fight to get up, if
you made that turn [southwest] until you got much closer to Baghdad?

MG PEAY: Well, I wasn’t sure. The intelligence report kept changing
in the two to three weeks prior to kick-off as to what forces were up there,
and furthermore, what other forces were going to close from the west of
Baghdad directly. But I thought logistically we could support it. It was
just a case of how we postured and structured the battlefield to do that.
I thought we could get it done.

MAJ WRIGHT: How did operations in the Euphrates Valley go on G+1, G+2?
Did you leapfrog?

MG PEAY: G+1 we moved LTC Tom Greco24 early in the morning
with the Chinooks. We just assaulted with our Chinooks, which is a little
bit unusual, into LZ SAND [south of Al Nasiriyah in Iraq]. Took our HMMWV
TOWs and some artillery, and then he started moving across the valley to
link up with the Blackhawks that moved in the afternoon to the muddy river
valley.

We decided to go early because we were having success. We also had very
bad weather and we didn’t see any sense in going in there at nighttime,
so we got in there about 1630, 1700 that afternoon. And I thought we had
weather really closing in on us too, so I wanted to get in in front of
the weather front. We did the link-up between Greco and COL Clark with
the rest of his brigade that night. The 3d Brigade effectively shut down
all east-west traffic in the Euphrates. Psychologically, we sent a message
to Baghdad.

And then, as you know, later on that evening a shamal25 came
through there and basically shut down everything, both heavy forces and
light forces on G+1.

[INTERRUPTION]

MAJ WRIGHT: We were talking about G+1, G+2. We had just dealt with the
shamal and its impact on equipment readiness and movement. And as the shamal
let up, which would have been, I guess, the morning of G+2, at that point
were you able to start your aggressive turn to the east and really push?

[40]

MG PEAY: Yes, we were. The night of G+1 or G+226, LTG Luck
cut the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade to us, and so in this windy, beat-up
stick-up tent [the Division Assault CP at FOB COBRA] we threw together
a plan to move quickly to the east. The morning of G+3 it started off.
On G+3 we cut Ted Purdom [2d Brigade] and his three battalions to the east,
secured an FOB known as TIM/VIPER,27 and flew in the 12th Combat
Aviation Brigade and our own Aviation Brigade and some fuel.

That morning the MSR VIRGINIA was gridlocked with units from the 82d
[Airborne Division] and corps support command. So we flew the fuel and
everything over it, and launched our air assault infantry over the top
of it—one of the big advantages [of an air assault division]. And then
that afternoon from 1330 till about 1800 or 1730, we worked the Apache
battalions further east and north towards Engagement Area THOMAS, north
of Basra, at first along a causeway area and then later the main north-south
Basra road.

MAJ WRIGHT: At that point it became almost a turkey shoot, in the sense
that the Iraqi command and control structure had pretty much collapsed
and the bridges had been cut. The number of egress routes was limited,
and they were just bottled up?

MG PEAY: That’s partially correct. The previous two days there had been
some evasion out of there, forces retreating. I think our action almost
turned into a pursuit. Then we got in there with our Apache battalions.
We shut that entire causeway area down. Our plan had been on G+4 to airlift
the 1st Brigade out of COBRA to Engagement Area [EA] THOMAS. We could get
on the ground exactly like we put the 3d Brigade on Highway 8 [in AO EAGLE],
so that we had a ground lock in there, as well. But there were so many
vehicles and fires burning, smoke, destruction all through there, that
the thing was almost shut down just by the carnage and the burning and
destroyed vehicles. Visibility was a zero and you had a lot of his forces
in the marsh. Some trying to surrender; others still fighting with lots
of fire at our guys.

MAJ WRIGHT: Overall, then, I guess resistance had pretty much collapsed,
as far as the 101st faced it. I think there were still pockets in some
of the other areas. At what point did you start getting the word a cease-fire
might be coming into effect?

MG PEAY: I can’t recall the exact time. You’d have to go to the G-3
log, but it seems to me the first call was about two in the morning. I
moved the Division Jump CP and then followed it with the Assault CP from
COBRA to VIPER. I spent the night of G+1 at COBRA, and then G+2 and G+3
at VIPER. I think I got the call at about two [0200] in the morning [G+4]
at VIPER—I was resting, snoozing in my helicopter, that’s why it comes
to mind—that it was to cease. And then we got a call shortly after, it
was not to cease, it would be over at 0400 [hours]. And then it seems

[41]

to me that it went 0400 to 0800, or something like that.28
It seems to me there were three cease fires. So that kind of ended it.
We never had to air assault the 1st Brigade to EA THOMAS from VIPER at
daybreak on G+4 as planned.

MAJ WRIGHT: But the capability to move the 1st Brigade had been there,
had it been necessary. It could have been done, fairly simply?

MG PEAY: It would have been another long lift, just like we moved the
3d Brigade. But again, as I mentioned early on, we’d practiced to do that.
The 2d Brigade was supposed to go up towards Tallil and a place called
GOLDEN STRIKE.29 But we moved so fast that we ended up actually
going almost laterally east, to VIPER, and then launching north and east
into Engagement Area THOMAS north of the 24th Division’s approach.

MAJ WRIGHT: After the cease-fire was in place,
you had two issues going on simultaneously. One, we started talking about
redeployment and the need to start that process. At the same time, however,
we had to maintain security in the Euphrates Valley, and it fell to both
the 101st and the 82d to keep forces out there. Did that become frustrating
for you, given that there were two sort of conflicting missions going on
simultaneously?

MG PEAY: No. The simultaneous missions were not frustrating. The challenge
I had was that I wanted to redeploy our soldiers home "professionally."
So I wanted to bring them back through Camp EAGLE II, draw their personal
gear that we had stockpiled there, put them in fresh uniforms, shower them,
shave them, and clean them up, and [have them tend to] their equipment
and accountability before I sent them home.

We had an emergency requirement to send, as I recall, 900 soldiers right
away, returning home in unit status. So we had to pull portions of the
2d Brigade out and fly them to Rafha. Then they stayed there overnight
on the airfield. [We] transloaded them from there by C-130s back to King
Fahd International Airport, then transferred them to civilian aircraft
for the homeward move.

We had that part of the mission going on, while simultaneously we had
begun the MEDCAPS [Medical/Civic Action Projects] and the destruction of
enemy equipment.

MAJ WRIGHT: How did Phase IV in the redeployment process go for the
division? Were you able to move fairly smoothly back here?

MG PEAY: Yes, we moved smoothly, sort of a reverse process of the way
that we went in. Closed out the Tactical Assembly Area CAMPBELL very professionally
under [BG] Ron Adams’ direction; moved back into King Fahd Airport and
Camp EAGLE II. The only thing that we had not pre-

[42]

pared for was the detailed standards required by the agricultural inspectors
to get our equipment out of country. So we had to buy some power equipment—some
power hoses. A lot of cleaning went on. We had a white glove kind of inspection
of every piece of equipment in the division. We set up twenty-four hour
water points to do that, and lots of light sets. It was a challenge for
our soldiers to put them through that kind of a drill. In retrospect, it
probably cleaned the vehicles up cleaner than they’ve ever been, and we’re
ahead of the game today. But in terms of clearing country, that was one
mission we did not enjoy. It harassed the soldiers and I didn’t like it.

MAJ WRIGHT: As the flow went, did you have adequate sea lift to keep
things going smoothly? Did you have adequate CRAF airlift to get your soldiers
home on a reasonable basis?

MG PEAY: Yes, I think so. We had to fight for our share of the CRAF
and sea, but it worked out okay, and we flew home. In fact, I think we
got home on schedule.

MAJ WRIGHT: Your equipment is still coming in, though?

MG PEAY: No, I think the division equipment is in. Some of it may be
in the rail yards or at port, but it is in the states.

MAJ WRIGHT: Did your division get a little breather before it had to
resume its DRB mission status?

MG PEAY: We put the soldiers on twenty-one days block leave, with nine
more days, for a total of thirty by 1 October. Of course, leaders didn’t
get that. Some of the leaders did, but some of the leaders had to turn
around and head for port to perform the CONUS reception port operations
and meet the equipment that was coming in, to get it back up here in the
motor pools quickly.

MAJ WRIGHT: When will you feel that the division will be fully ready-up
for the next contingency?

MG PEAY: Well, we set a mark on the wall of 1 July to have the Division
Ready Brigade ready to go. We will meet that, but it will be several months
before we have the entire division totally closed, inspections conducted,
property accountability done, all the maintenance pulled, and starting
back in a very serious training cycle.

MAJ WRIGHT: The division made it through without a serious beating up
of its equipment?

MG PEAY: Yes.

MAJ WRIGHT: Were there any particular areas where maybe the equipment
turned out to be less robust than you would have liked?

MG PEAY: No, I don’t think so. Our equipment, obviously, was worn through
this process, but it was still operational. In fact, it performed superbly
during the war from an operational

[43]

standpoint. We’re probably going to have to repaint our entire fleet,
because of the eight-nine months over there. But we’ve got to pull the
wheels now; pull the engines; see what kind of second and third order maintenance
damage was done. I don’t know the answer to that, but it will be done.
Certainly, the helo fleet engines took a beating and all of them will probably
need a major refit or overhaul.

MAJ WRIGHT: We’ve talked a lot about the helicopters and what a great
success they were. Within the division, your wheeled fleet—you executed
something and I would guess continued on, right through G-Day morning,
which was the swap-out [exchange] of your CUCVs [M-1008-series Commercial
Utility Cargo Vehicle] for HMMWVs.

MG PEAY: Right. We "pure-fleeted" the division with HMMWVs over there,
and swapped, as you said, right on through G-Day, and started doing some
similar 5-ton truck work concurrently.

MAJ WRIGHT: Is that something you were going to try to have as the division
continues to redeploy?

MG PEAY: We will continue the SLIM EAGLE project that we started prior
to departure, which was to make the division more relevant by making it
more deployable, thinner, but yet retaining the lethality. We will continue
to pure-fleet over the next six-seven weeks, and meet that objective.

MAJ WRIGHT: The HEMTT [Heavy Expanded-Mobility Tactical Truck], particularly
the HEMTT tanker variation, turned out to be a successful vehicle?

MG PEAY: Very successful.

MAJ WRIGHT: Last couple of questions, sir. Any particular system that
you think the division needs more of, say in the communications arena?

MG PEAY: No. What our division needs to do is to modernize. The Army
is going to work at that. But we’ve got UH-60A helicopters, because we
were the first issued them—the Blackhawks—seven to eight years ago. In
the meantime, we’ve processed in the Army all the way up to the UH-60L
models. So now we need to get the Lima model to take the place of our Alpha
models, because it gives us increased lift and increased avionics.

We’ll need to get the OH-58D in here, in lieu of our OH-58C. We’re going
to get an Apache battalion from Fort Hood this summer. We will then transition
our Cobra battalion to Apaches. So in very short order we will be a pure
Apache division. We will get lightweight TACFIRE here in August. That will
give us the automation for fire support, and we will get the L-119 105-mm.
howitzer on short order. I think that the issuance of the 5-ton vehicles
pretty much modernizes our division. We get MSE [Mobile Subscriber Equipment]
also within about six weeks.

MAJ WRIGHT: Which will minimize your need to try to get additional TACSATs
[Tactical Satellite Terminals]?

[44]

MG PEAY: No, I don’t think so. That’s a different issue. You’re still
going to need the TACSATs for the long range problems.

MAJ WRIGHT: Any particular comments, in the personnel arena, sir? How
was the division impacted by stop-loss?30

MG PEAY: We were the second unit to deploy, after the 82d. We were the
first division to close totally in-country. As a result of that, stop-loss
had not been initiated at the time we deployed. So when stop-loss came
in, we had been sending soldiers home at their normal ETS [Expiration of
Term of Service], some of which were in leadership positions. When stop-loss
hit, we had to bring back some soldiers. A number that we had sent back
home to Fort Campbell for separation, we had to bring them back, and yet
we had refilled their positions with other soldiers in the meantime, so
we had to give them different jobs. We went through some turbulence, not
massive, but we went through some turbulence before reaching a solution.

MAJ WRIGHT: You alluded to the fact that the team was very experienced.
Were you fortunate in this contingency breaking out at the end of a leadership
cycle when your leadership team was really quite strong because they had
gained extensive experience from working together, as opposed to, say,
if you had just freshly turned over most of your senior commanders and
key staff people?

MG PEAY: Oh, I think undoubtedly that worked to our advantage. Like
I said, we had a very strenuous first year back here at Campbell, doing
a lot of things that all paid off for us. And probably just as important,
we really knew each other. We knew our special techniques and SOPs [Standard
Operating Procedures] common to an air assault division. So it was easy
to hear a person’s voice; be able to give someone an order and know he
understands what you want him to do. And that happened a number of times.
SOPs, discipline, standards, and knowing each other were key components.

MAJ WRIGHT: Female soldiers. Were they an issue for the division?

MG PEAY: Female soldiers performed superbly. I think the policy is where
it should be today. I don’t think we should go to further expansion at
this time. The war was not of that length to allow you to draw further
conclusions.

MAJ WRIGHT: Your medical support systems, both preventive care and treatment,
were they adequate?

MG PEAY: Medical support was splendid. We had difficulties in locating
where our soldiers were, once they were evacuated out of the division area.
We’ve got to do some work here, computerization work, to be able to track
those soldiers.

And then we need to come to grips with the change in command from MSC
[Medical Service

[45]

Corps] to doctors as you deploy. The doctrine says you change that command.31
We changed it several days after we arrived in-country, and we changed
from MSC to doctor control. LTC Howard M. "Doc" Kimes became not only division
surgeon but also the 326th Medical Battalion commander, and then we changed
him back out several days before we redeployed home. It seems to me that
there was some disruption there that we need to look at. I know doctors
are in short supply, but it seems to me that we can put some doctors in
commands that habitually early deploy. My preference is that you leave
the doctors in command.

MAJ WRIGHT: What about the awards and decoration system, sir?

MG PEAY: We followed the regulation to a "T." I think that there are
pieces of that system that are no longer relevant to AirLand Battle. For
instance, there were a number of times where officers in our Assault CP
went forward of brigade areas. They’re not authorized to get the Combat
Infantryman’s Badge [CIB],32 yet an infantry officer assigned
to the brigade is, and yet they’re still undertaking the same risk. It’s
more than just the CIB. You can count in the same category Combat Medical
Badge, and you can apply it to a number of other kinds of things. We just
need to make the awards package a little bit more "relevant" to the times.

MAJ WRIGHT: No problems on understanding the intent of the regulation
as to what the appropriate degree of recognition was for an individual
action?

MG PEAY: No. But again, we are all victims of how we grew up. I drew
on my experience in Vietnam, where I was in the 4th Infantry Division and
the 1st Cavalry Division, and I saw the award systems run entirely different
in both divisions. So I tried to reach a happy medium, based on the Vietnam
experience with a longer war and some horror. Yet during DESERT SHIELD/DESERT
STORM there was the great danger that our troops were involved over nine
months. Even though there were only a hundred hours of the shooting war,
they still were over there eight or nine months where they were exposed
to security risks, danger from a safety perspective, medical, and other
kinds of things.

MAJ WRIGHT: Any thoughts about whether or not the air assault wings
should be moved into the same category as jump wings?

[46]

MG PEAY: Yes, I favor that. I recommended that to LTG Luck. I think
that we’re at that time now, very much like the glider units.33
In many ways the Blackhawk delivers soldiers in the same way as the glider
delivered soldiers. If a soldier makes a combat assault, as determined
by the division commander, then that soldier should get a star on his air
assault wings, to be given once per war, not to be given for fifty combat
assaults. But if he made a combat assault—in combat, not a logistical run,
not an airmobile move, but a combat assault—then I think the soldier should
be awarded a star for his air assault wings.

MAJ WRIGHT: Any comments on your losses?

MG PEAY: Well, you hate to have any losses. On the other hand, I have
to say we lost nine soldiers in my almost nine months there, from the time
I personally got in there until I got back. Five of those soldiers were
by direct combat, in a helicopter shot down on day G+3. Of the other four:
one by a traffic accident, where his vehicle turned over; one died when
an artillery piece exploded; and two suicides. So nine soldiers.

I think we were blessed, because we could have come out of there with
the several hundred, or close to a thousand, that I frankly thought we
might lose. We had prepared very hard for a large number of casualties.
I think we were very blessed that we got in behind the enemy quickly, rolled
him up, and he quit. And the soldiers and their leaders deserve accolades
for their safety performance on the ground and in the air.

MAJ WRIGHT: In terms of how capable the Iraqi soldier was, are we somewhat
deceived by the 100-hour war into thinking he was worse, instead of rating
ourselves high enough? Are we guilty of looking too much at him and saying
he was bad, and forgetting that there was an awful lot of buildup and careful
planning?

MG PEAY: I think it’s a little bit of both. We probably were better
than we thought we were, and he wasn’t as good as we thought he was. After
our division spent six months in the desert, our soldiers could handle
the desert as well as, if not better, than his soldiers. We bring to the
battlefield American intuition, flexibility, innovation that his society
does not bring, because it is much more centrally controlled. When you
turn American soldiers loose with their background, you get those kinds
of results.

I think we had a great plan that was perfectly executed. I also think,
very proudly, that our division plan complemented GEN Schwarzkopf’s overall
scheme. And I think we learned once again that the soldier knows best of
all. If a soldier does not like his leadership, and does not have confidence
and respect in his leadership, he will not have the will to fight. So you
put all that together in a bowl and kind of stir it up, and I think it’s
a "sound" American victory.

MAJ WRIGHT: What I think I hear you saying is pretty much that we actually
practiced what we wrote in our doctrine about commanders’ intent and maximum
flexibility at subordinate lay-

[47]

ers; to allow them to do the fine points of how they’re going to execute
missions, rather than what I think we both saw in Vietnam, which was a
tendency to over-manage the battlefield.

MG PEAY: Well, I don’t know if I saw so much of that in Vietnam. I personally
think sometimes that that’s also overdone. But I think we followed the
doctrine. You allow flexibility; you allow people to work within themselves,
but you still control. You don’t micro-manage, but you control. And I think
that’s what we do.

MAJ WRIGHT: My last question to you then sir, before I let the others
ask some questions. The thing that struck me as I saw the plan, was the
analogy to the jump that the division made in September 1944 in Operation
MARKET GARDEN. I was concerned as I looked at how far out we were going
to be putting COBRA, and how we were dependent on sustainability out there,
from having ground communications to the east and to the west come forward
and keep pace with us. Was that ever in the back of your mind that, Oh
God, I got out there and if the French ran into trouble and if the 24th
ran into trouble, it could get very nasty out there?

MG PEAY: I never had those concerns. I knew there was some risk, but
we’d been there six months working on these things and I felt that I personally
knew the desert. I knew my commanders, and I knew what the division could
do. Respectfully, I think I’m one of the few people, less some of the previous
101st commanders that have had my job—and my corps commander—who truly
knew the flexibility and hallmark of this division. I knew what this division
could do. I saw how it could move around that battlefield much faster than
other forces. It’s an "operational level force" and this campaign in the
desert was made for it.

There was great concern, not only at COBRA, but people were very worried
I was going to get stuck in the Euphrates. Yet I knew that there were soft
places in there that only the infantry could work. I saw the mud areas;
it was muddier than I thought it was going to be. But I knew that there
was land in there that was not trafficable from a heavy armor standpoint,
and I knew the infantry could work in there with their TOWs and with their
crew-served weapons and indirect fires. I also knew that in this division
we could quickly "reinforce," and we could bring in all the indirect air
and artillery. We could build up combat power very quickly.

So a lot of people were twisting their arms and hands, and very concerned,
particularly about going up that far on the Euphrates and didn’t want us
to get up there that far. I was always the guy that was pushing and saying,
let’s go further, let’s keep going. I can say that because of the kinds
of people that we had working in the division, and the capabilities they
had, and how well they were trained and equipped.

MAJ WRIGHT: Mr. Boggs, do you have some questions?

MR. BOGGS: Looking back on the whole picture, sir, what would you say
was the mood of the soldiers? If I could get you to follow it from predeployment
on through?

MG PEAY: Well, a lot has been written about that. I think in terms of
the way it’s been covered by the press, it was at times inaccurate. When
our soldiers deployed, they were confident; they did not have a lot of
"bravado." They had a mission to do; they had some concerns, but they were

[48]

ready to go do it. And they were proud to go do it. They had missed
Grenada and Panama. They were very disappointed they had not been called.
In fact, they were hurt by that. So they marched on to war, very quickly
and ready.

Now the early days were covered improperly by the press, in terms of
talking about low soldier morale. Our soldiers never had low morale. There
was nothing more than the kinds of gripes you get from soldiers all the
time operating in heat and dirt. Initially, we had a press corps that was
not steeped in the military, that did not understand all of that, and so
they reported what would be soldier complaints, and so forth that are the
norm in good units.

Conditions were very harsh over there. All of us were tired, but I never
saw the soldier ever being anything but proud, heads up, ready to go. I
think he carried that throughout, and I think the soldier today, the Screaming
Eagle, feels very good about what he and she did over there. Toward the
end, the press better understood, plus there was more to report than during
the buildup phase when missions and end-state objectives, and when we were
going to attack were not always clear.

MR. BOGGS: What were some of the big concerns? Were there concerns about
SCUD or chemical attacks?

MG PEAY: The chemical was the big unknown, because our current army
had never been subjected to that. We did an awful lot of training on that
prior to deploying in our N-Hour sequence piece, and we trained over there,
hard. Clearly, that was the big unknown, but I think the longer we stayed
with it, the more confident we got. The second thing is we captured some
of his chemical gear, and as our soldiers saw a lot of that, they became
more confident in our own capabilities. We got a lot out of that reconnaissance
period. And I’ll tell you we learned a lot about Saddam and his troops.
Some of our soldiers received a first taste of combat early on, so there
was an awful lot of good that came out of that reconnaissance period.

MR. BOGGS: Looking into the POWs, just a little bit. Were there any
real surprises about the volume or their condition when they were captured?

MG PEAY: Well, we didn’t expect the numbers we got; never anticipated
they’d collapse that quickly. As I said, the ones that we were involved
with were not in that bad shape.

MR. BOGGS: Did it pose any logistical problems?

MG PEAY: Yes. We had to then manage the evacuation of those. We had
to set up an additional EPW [Enemy Prisoner of War] camp. We had to put
holding areas further forward, in larger number. But our military police
guys did that very objectively, and we marched prisoners to base areas
where we were holding them in larger numbers. We carried some by passenger
bus [obtained] from the local economy; [we used] a myriad of different
ways that the innovative soldier figures out in adjusting to the situation
at hand.

MR. BOGGS: Did you have any concerns about terrorism?

[49]

MG PEAY: Yes, throughout the entire period we were back at Camp EAGLE
II, we were very concerned with terrorism. We had a heavy security web
during our defensive posture with battalion guards, wire, lights, cement
barrels, and those kinds of things. We constantly worked the terrorism
problem. Terror was a concern prior to G-Day operations.

MR. BOGGS: One last question, sir. The division was strung out over
vast distances. What was one of the biggest problems logistics-wise?

MG PEAY: You had to have a solid logistical plan that optimally kept
everything flying to deliver logistics on time. We were spread out, but
it worked. And it worked because of the enormous capability of the division
and our smart logistical planners. We moved the relevant forces, thinned
out, and used small logistic assault bases to facilitate the timeliness
and responsiveness.

Our division just has so much capability, so much flexibility. I don’t
know why, but over the years we’ve had a hard time educating a large part
of the leadership as to the enormous capability that this division brings
to the battlefield. Whether it be high or low intensity. When this war
ended we had 3d Brigade in the Valley of the Euphrates [at EAGLE]; 1st
Brigade way south of that at COBRA; 2d Brigade way east of that, ninety-five
miles east of that, at VIPER. And we had the Apache guys working way north,
up in Engagement Area THOMAS, with the Division Main still back at the
TAA [Tactical Assembly Area CAMPBELL]. That is stretching over almost a
quarter of the size of the eastern part of the United States of America.

Now, if it had gone longer there could have been times that we would
have had to maybe slow things down a little bit. But at the same time,
if it was going longer, we’d be moving more of the division in a "more
continuous" direction, that would have also cut down on the logistical
challenge.

1LT LIPPARD: Sir, in an earlier conversation with COL Richard Swain,
the ARCENT [U.S. Army Central Command] Historian, he discussed the role
of the division [headquarters] as a necessary step between corps and the
maneuver brigade, both for command and control and support. In light of
Operation DESERT STORM, where do you see the role of a division now?

MG PEAY: Well, I feel strongly about the role of the air assault division.
Now whether you can buy that much capability, based on where the budget
is going, is another matter. I believe in having divisions that have a
little bit more organic capability, because in early entry contingency
operations before the theater matures, the division ends up "reaching back,"
doing a lot of the corps work, while the corps is doing the "theater" operations.
Thus, the division has got to be able to push things down to brigades,
so the brigades can fight. So I’m a little reluctant on cutting too much
out of the division base. It doesn’t give you enough robustness and resiliency
to fight, because the corps is never going to get it to you on time . .
. particularly when fighting over hundreds and hundreds of miles. The corps
will never be that responsive with military police, with field artillery,
and so forth. Now, the corps can do some of the intel [intelligence] analysis
of the battlefield and assign capabilities down well in advance, but if
it’s still moving very quickly, you’ve got to have some organic capability
in there to allow you to do things.

Having said that, the budget process itself may drive you down to where
you can’t have a lot of things in the corps or division. I like the structure
of the divisions. . . perhaps we can "thin"

[50]

them out a little and leave the basic structure and maintain leadership
in place. I believe in the division base and not fixed brigades. The division
is blessed with senior leadership that enhances any fight.

1LT LIPPARD: Sir, one last question. Looking at air assault doctrine
as the latest step in the development of the Army’s airborne forces, where
do you see air assault and the use of airborne forces going in AirLand
Battle Future?

MG PEAY: I think there’s a place in the battlefield for both. You’re
going to need a forced entry capability, which the airborne and air assault
forces both give you, but in different ways. In many cases, "strategically,"
certainly in the next ten years, the airborne could be your forced entry
force and then blow the air assault forces right on through them after
they [the airborne] secure a lodgement or they can fight side by side in
a multiplying effect. I do think in the future, as technology continues
and continues to grow, that you can almost launch these aviation platforms
"strategically." Certainly over operational distances you could launch
them and do many things that the airborne forces do.

Airborne forces, though, have the great advantage of not bringing a
large tail with them. In our division, we have cut down the tail considerably.
Today, under our SLIM EAGLE project, we are almost as rapidly deployable
as the airborne forces are. In other words, our DISCOM has come down in
size. Now, you put the strategic package together, and there’s not that
much difference. Yet, we bring enormous firepower and mobility to the battlefield.
So there’s great relevancy for both forces in the future. We’ve got to
place them against the missions that are required. Air assault forces are
expensive. I doubt if you’re going to be able to form too many of these
kinds of outfits. So you again have to apply it [the 101st] against the
mission.

The beauty we bring is that we are totally integrated in many ways:
communications systems to our infantry-air platforms, our artillery-to-infantry-to-air
platforms that enhance the operational level fight. There’s lots of high
technology in the division.

MAJ WRIGHT: A last, sort of general question, sir, and this is something
that I try to always ask. Is there any vignette that sticks in your mind
from this experience? You personally? Any one image or humorous incident,
or something that you will keep with you always?

MG PEAY: No, I don’t have a humorous vignette. Someone asked me the
other day what was the toughest decision. Believe it or not, the toughest
decision was the weather decision "to go" on G-Day. It was instinct on
my part. Everybody was recommending "no" and "delay." The weather bird
had crashed. We put out two other birds at about 35 miles, each reporting
bad weather. I made the decision to go. And that was the toughest decision
that I had for the entire war, just the weather decision to go on G-Day.

I had more confidence in these guys than they probably had in themselves.
I knew our aviator guys. They deserve a lot of credit for the tremendously
tough weather conditions they flew in the entire nine months over there.
And they did just that. They navigated around some pretty bad weather pockets
and got in there, and they did a great job for us.

It was a long, long deployment and a short war. I think the conclusions
are that we were trained; that we’ve got a great capability in the air
assault division that conceptually can do many

[51]]

things in the future that we can further exploit. I think there are
some ways to exploit this air assault doctrine—air assault technology—that
will give us even greater capability in the future. The 101st Airborne
Division is an operational-level division that can also fight full spectrum.

The soldiers are flexible, adaptable, innovative, and were just battle-hardened!
Safety permeates the Army, and I think finally what it all came down to
is that you have a proud division. It was well trained. It was very disciplined.
It was a hallmark performance, and they did the job that the nation desired.

MAJ WRIGHT: Who named NEWMARKET, NEWMARKET?

MG PEAY: I’m not sure. Either COL Tom Hill did or LTC Jim McGarity,
his brigade executive. I’m not really sure which. Jim McGarity formed Task
Force CITADEL,34 and he said to me in a backbrief "well, TF
CITADEL will move on MSR NEWMARKET." Let’s give Jim McGarity the credit.

MAJ WRIGHT: Thank you very much, sir.

_________________________

NOTES:

1 "N-Hour" stands for notification hour, the
actual time the unit is alerted for deployment. As part of the XVIII
Airborne Corps, the 101st Airborne Division has a highly detailed deployment
timeline. Alert contingencies range from eighteen to forty-eight
hours to prepare for rapid deployment by Air Force aircraft.

2 The division's 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation,
and the 18th Aviation Brigade's 2d Battalion, 229th Aviation, from Fort
Rucker, Alabama, which was attached to the Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division, were equipped with Apaches. The 2d Squadron, 17th
Cavalry, and the 3d Battalion, 101st Aviation, deployed with AH-1S Cobras,
which were later exchanged in theater for the AH-1F upgrades.

3 Civilian aircraft leased to the Defense Department
during periods of mobilization for the purpose of transporting men, supplies,
and equipment to a theater of war.

4 The AH-64s were in the 1st Battalion, 101st
Aviation; the 2d Battalion, 229th Aviation; and the 12th Aviation Brigade's
5th Squadron, 6th Cavalry, and the 3d Battalion, 227th Aviation.
AH-1S (later exchanged for AH-1F) Cobras from the 3d Battalion, 101st Aviation,
and the 2d Squadron, 17th Cavalry. UH-60 Blackhawks were in the 4th,
5th and 9th Battalions, 101st Aviation. UH-1H Iroquois ("Hueys")
were in the 6th Battalion, 101st Aviation. CH-47D Chinooks were in
the 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation. See the appendix for descriptions
and illustrations.

5 Prefabricated hangers.

6 M17 Sanatpr Lightweight Decontamination System
comes with a water heating unit, and various shower and hose attachments
for cleaning men and equipment.

7 AO NORMANDY was about sixty miles by
thirty miles.

8 The 101st Airborne Division is famous for
its defense of Bastogne, Belgium, and the surrounding road net during the
Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.

9 General Peay italicized portions of the text
for emphasis.

10 Between 18 and 29 January 1991, about 3,000
vehicles, 350 helicopters, and 550 C-130 sorties repositioned the 101st
Division to TAA CAMPBELL, southeast of Rafha. During the move, the
division traversed over 600 miles by road or about 300 miles by air.

11 MG Peay had instituted a series of "Air
Assault Battle Notes" to standardize tactical operations and air assault
doctrine within the 101st Airborne Division. The notes focused on
topics ranging from air assault artillery raids to landing zone/pickup
zone operations.

19 Throughout its deployment in Southwest Asia,
the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) operated with a command and control
structure based on four separate command posts. In keeping with the
overall philosophy of XVIII Airborne Corps, the Main Command Post (Main
CP or Division Main) carried out the central operations and planning functions
under the direct supervision of the Chief of Staff. The Rear CP,
under the Assistant Division Commander (Support) with the division's G-1
and G-4, focused on rear battle and logistical planning. The Tactical
Command Post (TAC CP), also called the Division Assault CP, under the Assistant
Division Commander (Maneuver) directed the close battle, normally with
the G-3 and G-2 present and only a skeletal staff of about twenty to thirty
operating in tents. The remaining command post, the Jump CP, really
consisted of MG Peay's personal command and control helicopter with an
extensive suite of communications equipment. The Jump CP roamed the
division area to ensure that the commanding general could exert his influence
where it would be the most effective. Of the four, only the TAC and
Jump CPs entered Iraq.

20 Company A, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry,
an element of the 1st Brigade, captured the Iraqi 2d Battalion, 843d Brigade,
45th Infantry Division in a bunker complex within the general COBRA area.

21 MAJ Samir Ali Khader.

22 Usually the amount of time helicopter blades
actually operated in the harsh desert environment, but in this usage MG
Peay is probably referring to the amount of time aviation assets would
be unused for other air assaults.

23 The 101st Division's long range surveillance
detachment had one team on Highway 8 that withdrew as soon as initial air
assault elements of Task Force 3-187 landed. The Scout Platoon from
Headquarters Company, 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, established an observation
post on LZ SAND and conducted a route reconnaissance from there to AO EAGLE.

24 Commander, Task Force RAKKASAN. The
task force consisted of wheeled elements of the 187th Infantry (almost
two full rifle companies and three anti-tank companies) from the 3d Brigade,
as well as artillery and engineers.

25 A shamal is a desert windstorm. The
winds at COBRA reached sustained speeds over thirty miles per hour and
gusted to sixty. Blowing sand and dust dangerously restricted visibility.

26 On G+1 [25 Feb], XVIII Airborne Corps issued
the order giving the 101st operational control of the 12th Aviation Brigade
effective 1000 hours (local time), 26 February, when the brigade's ground
convoy crossed its line of departure enroute to COBRA.

27 Forward Operating Base VIPER was established
on an XVIII Airborne Corps objective, originally code-named "TIM."

28 Part of the confusion surrounding the cease-fire
resulted when orders were issued giving the effective time as 0800, but
without offering a date time group that would have indicated 0800 in a
particular time zone. XVIII Airborne Corps interpreted that the cease-fire
took effect at 0800 Zulu, or Greenwich Mean time, when it really
took effect at 0800 Charlie (local time).

29 A landing zone near Tallil.

30 Stop-loss was the DOD policy that temporarily
suspended personnel separations from the armed forces during the Gulf war.

31 During peacetime, most deployable [Table
of Organization and Equipment (TOE)] medical battalions and hospitals are
commanded by MSC officers, while most clinical staff slots, including the
Medical Corps commanding officer, remain empty. The doctors, nurses
and other health care professionals are usually assigned to the local Health
Services Command [or U.S. Army Medical Command since 1994] facility, knowing
that when TOE units deploy for operations they will be used to fill the
empty slots under the Professional Filler System [PROFIS]. The MSC
officers that commanded the units in garrison usually become the executive
officers. A common complaint among MSC officers is that under this
system medical units deploy with commanding officers that may be unfamiliar
with their units and personnel.

32 CIB is awarded to soldiers exposed to combat
while serving in infantry military occupational specialties (11 and 18
series) assigned to infantry brigades and special forces groups (at headquarters
level and below).

33 During World War II, an airborne division's
glider infantry regiments did not receive the same pay or recognition as
the parachute infantry regiments.

34 MG Peay graduated from the Virginia Military
Institute. LTC McGarity graduated from The Citadel. The V.M.I.
Corps of Cadets fought in the Civil War battle of Newmarket in 1864.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

APPENDIX A

This appendix provides general, unofficial information on the characteristics
and arma-ment of selected equipment, referred to in the text and used by
the U.S. Army during the war in Southwest Asia. For additional technical
information, readers should consult the following: the Army publication
Weapon Systems: United States Army, 199 1, issued annually and sold by
the Government Printing Office; the magazine Army, especially the October
issue known as the "Green Book," published by the Association of the United
States Army (2425 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. 22201); and the many reference
books produced by Jane's Information Group (1340 Braddock Place, Suite
300, Alexandria, Va. 22314), among them Jane's Armour and Artillery, Jane's
Infantry Weapons, and Jane's Weapon Systems.

The line drawings are provided for identification and are not drawn
to a standard scale. Statistical data is approximate.